Day 7 Luang Prabang

This morning we went first to the Royal Palace Museum. This was built in 1904 during the early French colonial era as a residence for King Sisavangvong. According to our guide it was originally built with half its façade in the French style and half in the Laotian style but , more recently, the French half was remade to be Laotian. There were many rooms decorated as they would have been in the early 1900’s and some interesting ornately embroidered official clothing.

Luang Prabang has many many wats ( temples) . We went to what is reputed to be the most magnificent, Wat Xieng Thong. It had royal patronage until 1975 when the communists took over and the royal family was sent to the north to be reeducated. The main building is in traditional Luang Prabang temple style and is quite attractive with a sort of layered roof. It was ornately decorated with gold stencils on the walls but there was a peaceful feeling to it.

We had another delicious lunch in a restaurant overlooking the Mekong. We had 4 dishes between 4 of us, rice and a great fresh lemon and mint drink for 134,000 kip. 1$Aus = about 8,000kip. We gave them 35,000 kip each – about $4.50. There are some upmarket shops with beautiful stuff that we strolled past. We found a place that I had read about where you can buy books that are then distributed to school children in poor areas. We bought a few. I bought an icecream from a street seller for 2000 kip ( 25cents) . It was like a chocolate coated chocolate paddlepop but the icecream was fairly basic.

There are lots of tourists wandering around, many guesthouses, many places operating tours to places a little way out of town, lots of colour – the buildings, tropical plants etc. The locals seem pleasant and gentle. It is quieter and more peaceful than either Dali or Lijiang in Yunnan that I visited last year.