Strolling around town: One of the most enjoyable things to do in Luang Prabang is to walk around. It’s an incredibly easy city to navigate, especially compared to other Southeast Asian cities. Everywhere is walkable, most streets are pretty quiet, and you seldom have to dodge cars, motorbikes or animals. We spent most of our time here walking down the extraordinarily charming streets, strolling the Mekong, and exploring little alleyways. It was awesome and such a breath of fresh air coming off of our time in Cambodia

Wat hopping: We were amazed at the sheer volume of wats (Buddhist temples) in Luang Prabang. We spent a lot of our time exploring temples around the city. Our favorites were:

• Wat Xiengthong: The first wat that we visited in Luang Prabang was also our favorite. It is situated in a peaceful corner of the city overlooking the Mekong and surrounded by beautiful trees, flowers, and lawns. The temple was built in 1560 and has components that we found unique to Lao temples including green tiling and detail on the roof, elaborate scenes depicted in shiny mosaics on the outside of the temple, and gold stenciling on the interior. We also got our first glimpse of monks here, a sight that would become commonplace over the next few days

• Wat Wisunarat: We happened to be staying ~30 feet from this temple so decided to check it out on our walk home one day. To our surprise, it is the oldest temple in Luang Prabang! It was built in 1513 and is known for its distinct watermelon-shaped stupa. We found the interior of the temple special with its giant golden Buddhas encircled by smaller, bronze statues

• Wat Long Koon & Wat Tham Sakkalin: We made quick stops at both of these temples which are located across the river from Luang Prabang’s city center in Chomphet. We found their location to be incredibly serene and spiritual with very few people and no noise pollution. At Wat Long Koon, we appreciated the historical murals that framed the entrance to the temple. We also had the opportunity to listen to monks chanting a mantra which was very neat. We found the detailed paintings outside of Wat Than Sakkalin to be unique compared to the other temples we’ve visited

Luang Prabang Night Market: One of the first places that we went in Luang Prabang was the night market which was packed! We ended up coming back to the market every night to walk around, try street eats, and browse Laotian crafts. It was one of the best night markets we visited in Southeast Asia due to its unique and fun handicrafts. There were a few stalls with the typical elephant pants, but most of what we saw were things that were unique to Laos. Specifically, we saw funny bags from nearby Hmong tribes, spoons and other metal crafts made of unexplored ordinances, and textiles made from other indigenous tribes. On the food front, we were excited to try Lao khao soi which bore little resemblance to the khao soi that we fell in love with in Northern Thailand, though was very delicious. We were also beyond excited to see a delicious selection of French-inspired pastries. We came back a few times to try several of them… for science 🙂

UXO Info Center: During our travels and specifically in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, we’ve found ourselves grappling with the U.S.’s depressing role and history in the region. Though we considered ourselves well-educated on international relations (Jessie’s college major) and the recent history of U.S. intervention, we didn’t know nearly enough about America’s nefarious history in Cambodia and Laos prior to traveling. We substantiated our travels by listening to a book on U.S. intervention in Laos – A Great Place to Have a War. In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. conducted a “secret war” (kept from the American public, depressingly obvious to every Laotian) in Laos which was a neutral country at the time. The justification for this war and the largest bombing campaign in history was Domino Theory, the Cold War idea that if one country fell to communism, a slew of others would follow like a series of dominoes. Laos was so paramount to this theory given its geographic location between Vietnam and Thailand (a key U.S. ally) that it was considered the most important foreign policy priority (more so than Cuba, Soviet Union, etc.) when Eisenhower transitioned to Kennedy. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, making it the most heavily bombed country in history. Since the bombing stopped, over 25,000 Laotians have been killed or injured by unexploded ordinance (UXO). In the UXO Info Center, we watched videos that are routinely shown to children all over Laos to advise them of the dangers of UXOs (they can look like toys) and heard devastating stories from Laotians maimed by UXOs. Visiting the center and learning about the ongoing impact of UXOs was incredibly somber and shameful to us as American citizens. We feel that the U.S. has a moral obligation to take care of the unexploded ordinance in Laos that has plagued the population since the secret war

Morning Market: After the UXO Info Center, we walked to Morning Market. It was a joy to walk through with local vendors setting up shop in every usable space down picturesque alleyways. We saw piles of unfamiliar and familiar fresh vegetables, mountains of chilis and ginger, and fresh and dried fish. There were very few tourists, especially compared to the night market

Ock Pop Tok: Try saying that 10 times fast (Jessie couldn’t even say it right one time)! Luang Prabang is full of cute boutiques selling locally-made products, with Ock Pop Tok leading the pack. We were excited to check out this spot and found plenty of clothes and home goods that piqued our interest. We ended up buying a shirt for Doug and cloth napkins for our future place. We might not know where we’re moving or have a place, a table, or dishes yet, but we have some awesome Laotian napkins! 

Mount Phousi: One of the things “you have to do” in Luang Prabang is catch the sunset from Mount Phousi, the highest point in the city. We’re suckers for a good sunset, so we of course obliged. After making the trek up Mount Phousi, we grabbed a nice spot for sunset and watched the sun start to go down. As the sun sunk towards the Mekong, throngs of tourists flooded Mount Phousi to watch the sunset like us. It became super crowded and noisy, not the most pleasant atmosphere to enjoy a sunset. We looked at each other with mutual understanding and decided to give up our prime seats and find another place to watch the sunset. People probably thought we were crazy, but we didn’t regret it for a minute! We still enjoyed the hike up and down, but wouldn’t recommend watching the sunset at Mount Phousi if anyone reading this (or our future selves) ever finds themself in Luang Prabang

Kuang Si Falls: Seeing pictures of Kuang Si Falls, a tiered turquoise waterfall, sparked our initial interest in visiting Luang Prabang so we were excited to check out the falls in person. Our day consisted of a few steps:

• Getting to the falls: We were in Luang Prabang on Valentine’s Day (coincidentally one of the more romantic places we’ve been) and decided to get to the falls in a less traditional manner – via boat. We made the two-hour journey down the Mekong river to the falls in a traditional Lao slow boat and loved the tranquility and scenes of daily life on the river that came with it. After around two hours, we disembarked and walked uphill into a small village where a woman with a lead foot was waiting. We hopped into her pickup truck and cruised down the roads to Kuang Si, appreciative for our seatbelts (a luxury in Southeast Asia). We bought our tickets and boarded yet another form of transportation – a mega golf cart – that took us to the base of the falls

• Walking around the falls: On our way to the falls, we walked through the Bear Rescue Center that houses rescued sun bears and moons bears. We learned that wild bears are often poached, kept in suffocating cages, and milked for their bile to be used in traditional medicines around Asia. Luckily, this center in Luang Prabang is committed to rescuing and rehabilitating bears in Laos. After watching the bears lounge, we continued our walk towards the falls, passing many blue lagoons with water that resembled light blue Gatorade along the way. The main waterfall was stunning – the water color was unreal and the rocks that shaped the waterfall looked like a limestone sand castle. On our hike to the top of the waterfall, we made friends with a fellow American couple from DC – Rick and Linda. They were awesome – we shared travel stories (they did a year-long trip when they were our age), talked about life at home, and compared experiences in Laos thus far

• Swimming in the falls and getting back: After a fun, sweaty hike with our new friends, it was time to swim. We scouted out the perfect spot and excitedly launched into the clear water. It was cold, but felt amazing after our sticky, muddy hike. Plus, it was beyond amazing to be swimming in the pool of a waterfall! This will be a tough Valentine’s Day to top. After our swim, we headed back to the golf cart to the truck to the boat. On the boat, an awesome picnic of dried riverweed, baguette sandwiches, and fruit awaited us. We cracked open two cold Beer Laos and cheers’ed to an awesome day

Royal Palace Museum: The Royal Palace Museum was more interesting than we were expecting, containing more than just a typical royal palace. Our first stop was the famous royal cars exhibit. Most of the cars in this exhibit were not fancy cars, but rather Lincolns that were gifted to the Lao government from the U.S. We think that they were gifted during the time of the secret war, making it an even stranger exhibit. Next up, we walked to the temple on the royal palace grounds – Haw Pha Bang. The temple has an impressive gold and green facade and contains the amazing, 2,000 year-old statue that is Luang Prabang’s namesake. The last and most interesting stop was the actual royal palace (no pictures allowed). The palace was very modest, but it had amazing insets of Laotian stories carved in shiny mosaics in the throne room and a room of interesting gifts. The most puzzling gift was a piece of the moon given to Laos from the U.S. under Nixon (during the secret war). We wondered if Nixon stockpiled pieces of the moon to give to all countries and reflected on how odd the timing of this strange gift was

Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center (TAEC): Laos is home to over 160 different ethnic subgroups, making it one of the most diverse countries in Southeast Asia. TAEC spotlights several different ethnic minorities, their cultures, and their traditions. We really enjoyed learning about the communities that comprise Laos and the richness of their heritage. We also had fun walking through an exhibit dedicated to ethnic music in Laos, trying our hand at a traditional flute-like instrument (it was impossible), and listening to music from different festivals

Alms Giving: We went back and forth on attending Alms Giving, a daily, sacred Buddhist ceremony where locals give monks offerings for sustenance for the day, as we were really interested to see the tradition, but didn’t want to be voyeuristic. After reading about the tradition and educating ourselves on how to be respectful spectators, we decided to go for it. We woke up before the crack of dawn and walked to one of the main temples in town to witness alms. On our way, we crossed paths with a long line of saffron-clad monks making their way around town – it was a really amazing sight. As we got closer to the temple, we saw large groups of people sitting in chairs lining the walkway to the temple – some sitting quietly and respectfully, some not so much. We recognized two distinct groups of people – locals and/or observant Buddhists that were accustomed to giving daily alms as part of their religion and tourists that were (often loudly) participating in the tradition for the opportunity to get a picture taken of them giving food to monks. Add insult to injury, despite the numerous signs (legit one in every temple) asking tourists to be respectful and keep their distance from monks, we saw many spectators get up close in the monks’ faces to take pictures (sometimes with flash). We decided to relocate to a quieter section of the street where we sat quietly and watched a local family give alms to all of the monks that passed by. It was an incredible thing to witness, but we did feel sad and ashamed that the sacred tradition has been threatened by tourists looking to get their photo opps