Luang Prabang...

Luang Prabang...

We have been in Luang Prabang for nearly a week now and all I can say is, WOW. It is without a doubt one of the most charming cities we have been to so far. Lying on a peninsula formed by the intersection of the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers, the town is loaded with crumbling colonial French villas intermixed with sparkling Buddhist Wats. Given this curious mix of architecture the whole town has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The town is incredibly seductive, it feels as if you have somehow been transported back 100 years to Montmartre,Paris without leaving Laos. Watching orange clad monks stroll by carrying umbrellas while you sip coffee in 90 year colonial French villas is a common occurrence. All of the streets and building are lined with paper lanterns and when they light up at night, atmosphere and ambiance permeate the town like a fog. Even with all the retired, package tourists from
France and America, the town still maintains a magic all its own. Some call Luang Prabang the Pearl of the Orient, I certainly would.

If Luang Prabang is the Pearl of the Orient then the last town we were in, Vang Vieng, must be its turd... While Luang Prabang transports you to the Paris of a hundred years ago, Vang Vieng transports you to Daytona Beach during spring break. Despite being set in one of the most scenic valleys I ever seen, Vang Vieng has managed to completely sully itself by catering to drunken party tourists, promoting "tubing" down the river. This entails getting in a tube and floating from bar to bar while blaring club music fights for attention from a dozen different sound systems. The result is a overwhelmingly muddled mess of drunken hedonism. The only thing its missing is "Girls Gone Wild" but Im sure they'll be here soon. With complete disregard for local culture and sensibilities. The town is filled with topless fools and bikini clad harlots wandering the streets, acting like idiots and giving all westerners a bad name. The hostility between the locals and the tourists is so palpable you could cut it with a knife. I have never been in a place where there was such a venomous atmosphere. While im all for a party, the sad part is that it is taking place in a truly spectacular valley, and most of the people there too drunk to notice or for that matter, give a shit. Think Yosemite valley but in Laos, 2000ft+ limestone cliffs rising vertically out of idyllic rice paddies, and covered in virgin rainforest. This drunken mess could be done anywhere, on any river, in any part of the world. Why ruin such an amazing place? If it were in the States Vang Vieng would surely be a National Park. Oh well...Between the drunks and the scenery
this place was definitely jaw dropping.

We started the month off in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It is a rather ho-hum kind of place, if you didn't already know it, you would have no idea that it was a capital city. Vientiane is laid back and pleasant but not really worth writing home about. Although we were able to finally find some Belgian beer. Even though they were $6 a bottle, Chimay Blue and Chimay White were a welcome relief from the piss that is beer in Asia. We spent 3 days.

We will be back on the road in a day or two. We will take a slow boat up the Mekong to a little village and spend a couple days. Then we will start making our way south to the Plain of Jars and eventually to an area of Laos on the Cambodia border know as "4000 Islands". The Mekong apparently fans out into dozens of islands, small and large. There are waterfalls and the rare Irrawaddy dolphin.

Till then...