Lovely Luang Prabang, Laos

Luang Prabang, Laos is probably the loveliest place that we have traveled to so far. It's a small city of around 26,000 but big on culture, personality, and in a gorgeous natural setting between two rivers and the mountains. It was the former capital of Laos, and is filled with temples, varied architecture influenced in the styles of Laos, Thai, Vietnam and France, and cultural activities like the Royal Museum, National Theatre, lots of art galleries, cafes, and the biggest night craft market in all of Laos.

The people in Laos are very gentle and kind, unlike the Cambodians who were more aggressive in their selling techniques, and the Thai who are also very friendly and accommodating, but less caring and gentle. 80% of people live outside the city, making their living mostly with rice farming, making textiles, paper, or whisky.

Today we biked to a weaving village 4km outside of the city. The bikes we rented were pretty crappy, and it turns out i really don't like mountain biking, but it was nice to get out of town and get a peak at village life. Everyone in the village we visited makes their living weaving textiles. Each home had a loom sitting outside where the women were at work, weaving intricite silk and cotton textiles. The mothers teach their daughter how to weave each piece. We stopped at one house that had a large display outside, and got to watch the mother working on a very detailed piece, while the daughter worked on a less intricite, but still beautiful and patterned piece. The son was making a fishing net. We bought some textiles and biked our way on, stopping at a few other places including a silversmith house and then to a roadside shop for lunch. We had purchased some baguette sandwiches in town to bring along for the ride. For $1.25 we got a huge baguette filled with chicken and vegetables.

Another great thing about Laos, because of the French influence there are baguettes everywhere. Unlike Thailand, where they do serve bread to the tourists for breakfast, but it is basically wonder bread that sucks. The lao have adopted the baguette as their own, and fill it with pates and fillings of their own making. Lots of bakeries and cafes line the streets, and you can get a huge fruit shake and a beer lao almost anywhere for $1 each. Also, they have decent wine here, including imported french wine, and a local wine made here. They also sell bottles of lao snake whisky -- with cobras and scorpions along with the whisky. We haven't tried this yet.

Tomorrow, we head to some class 3 rapids on kayaks up river.