Katie and James on Planes

Luang Prabang, Laos

When James and I travel we tend to aim for a balance of nature and cities / towns, authenticity, and a bit of luxury. We tend to prefer smaller cities and towns to huge, bustling cities. We also like to make multiple stops on a trip rather than relaxing in one place for a longer time. With all of this in mind, Luang Prabang made a perfect first stop for our three-part Laos and Thailand trip.

Luang Prabang is digestible and is more of a medium-sized town – everything is walkable, and the city feels quite peaceful. There is an incredible mix of history, culture, and stunning natural sites to see within an hour’s drive. We spent 3 full days in Luang Prabang and it was the perfect amount of time before leaving for Chiang Mai, though I am sure there is more to discover on a longer stay.

As with most destinations, not everything looks like the advertisement images online. Laos is not a wealthy nation. There is trash in some areas by the river and some buildings have been neglected. However, I found that months after our trip Luang Prabang has really stuck with me for some reason, and I am so glad we decided to venture into Laos rather than sticking only to Thailand.

Day 1 – Arrival in Luang Prabang

Our first day in Laos started in Bangkok. We had flown Singapore airlines on Thursday night, arriving in Frankfurt the next morning, and then left for Bangkok on Thai Airways early evening. Our flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok was in Business Class (which was lovely, but not to be compared to Emirates or Qatar Airways), so we were able to arrive with some energy after getting a decent night of sleep. Upon arrival in Bangkok we had to go through customs before checking in for our flight to Luang Prabang on Bangkok Airways. After getting some ramen and meandering around BKK for a few hours we located our gate. There are 1-2 flights per day from BKK to Luang Prabang, so we were very dependent on this one going out – ours was delayed by 2 hours, which I expect happens regularly. The gate was a bit of a ghost town and apart from a backpacker fully sprawled out on the benches sleeping with no shoes or socks on we were the first ones there.

James and I on our Thai Airways flight from Frankfurt à Bangkok

After some time, a sparse crowd gathered, and the gate attendant showed up. This was the most chilled out flight I have ever been on until our flight from Luang Prabang to BKK on Lao Airlines a few days later. The plane was a propeller plane and was bare bones but got the job done. The flight is only 2 hours long, but they feed you a full meal. It was not a meal I felt compelled to eat but I thought it was a nice change from US airlines. Towards the end of the flight we got an incredible view of the clay-colored Mekong river snaking through the mountains.

The Luang Prabang airport is teeny tiny. We did visa-on-arrival and I made sure we came with crisp, brand new $20 bills to pay for the visas – apparently they reject crumbled or even mildly discolored bills. You will also need some single dollar bills to pay the fee for them to scan your passport photo to use as the visa photo. This whole process took a mere 20-30 minutes and then we were off to get our luggage and meet our driver arranged through the hotel.

Our hotel, Maison Dalabua, was located very centrally just a few blocks from the night market (a quick 10 minute drive from the airport). I cannot recommend Maison Dalabua enough – it is truly the perfect boutique hotel experience. A turn off the main thoroughfare leads you to a quiet, tree-lined street. An unassuming entrance leads you into a small but serene lobby where you can start to see the grounds of the hotel. The hotel is set around three UNESCO classified lily ponds and tropical gardens; the photos online are beautiful but don’t do it justice. It really feels like you’ve stepped into another world and I truly miss waking up there. The rooms have a clean and thoughtful design that blends well with the surroundings.

After settling into our hotel, we walked to dinner at Tamarind. The ~30 hours of travel was getting to us at this point, which is why I look so disheveled in the below photo. You will see Tamarind recommended in lots of blogs and travel sites and the vibe I got was that it would be a slightly westernized introduction to Lao food in a setting that is appropriate for very tired and hungry travelers. I would say that that impression was spot on, and I think it’s a great first night spot.

On Lao food: I had done a TON of reading about traditional Lao ingredients and dishes; I was excited to try everything and consider myself an adventurous eater (except for offal, that is where I become less adventurous). I am so glad to have gotten to experience Lao food, but it has a flavor and texture profile that was a bit overwhelming for me, purely due to how different it was from anything I’ve ever eaten before. I found myself eating mango sticky rice and spring rolls for my last dinner in Laos.

At Tamarind we started with the dipping sampler and a plate of Sai Oua, which was delicious and approachable. My favorite part was eating a ball of sticky rice with a piece of Sai Oua (very smoky and herbaceous local pork sausage) and the smoky eggplant dip (Jeow Mak Keua). The platter also came with the popular local dried river weed, which I did not like but was good to try. For the mains we ordered fish in banana leaf (Mok Pa), buffalo laap (Laap Kwai), and the “Luang Prabang Stew” (Or Larm). The fish was our favorite dish by far – it was so delicate flavorful with the herbs – I would highly recommend it. The buffalo laap we had to try as it is one of the most common dishes in the area. We opted to order without the buffalo bile and tripe, which is the classic preparation. There was a flavor in both laap dishes I tried in Laos that just did not work for me. I can only describe it as an earthy flavor, and it’s possible it’s due to the animals’ diets. Lastly, Or Larm – this stew is absolutely worth trying. The stew has Lao chili wood that you chew on but do not swallow and gives the stew a unique, complex flavor. Overall, it was a successful dinner, and we left very full and sleepy.

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Day 2 – Climbing Mt. Phousi, exploring town, and sunset cruise

Our first full day in Laos started before sunrise, with both James and I waking up around 4:30 am. It just so happens that walking up Mt. Phousi for sunrise or sunset is a highly recommended activity in Luang Prabang, so we headed out into the fresh morning air before 5 am. 

While walking from Maison Dalabua to Mt. Phousi we passed by people setting up little plastic chairs for the Alms giving ceremony, which happens every day around 5:30 am. This is a highly advertised activity to do in Luang Prabang, but it read as very strange to me… you pay for the seats, and then it is almost purely tourists giving out bags of chips. I think it’s likely a beautiful experience in other places or perhaps just off the main street, but we decided to skip it in Luang Prabang. We did however see some young monks scurrying around on Mt. Phousi after the ceremony.

Back to Mt. Phousi – it is technically not open until 6:30 am, but it is well known that that is not enforced. On the main route up, there is a small gate that you can open and a bucket to leave a donation (there is no entrance fee). On the other side of the hill there is no gate at all. It is a quick ~20 minute walk up and we made it to the top for sunrise. The actual sunrise was not super visible as it was cloudy, but the atmosphere was lovely and there were only a few other people up there. After the sunrise we meandered down the back side of the mountain where you pass by plenty of Buddha statues and then walked back to our hotel for breakfast.

Breakfast at Maison Dalabua was a major highlight. You sit around the main lily pond and there is a huge variety of western and Lao food. Having the Lao sausage with the creamiest scrambled eggs was so good. They also had a Lao breakfast soup of the day that I really enjoyed. After tons of fresh fruits, juices, Lao soup, scrambled eggs and sausage, yogurt, and little coconut pancakes (a local dish) we headed back to our room to shower.

We spent the next few hours strolling around Luang Prabang, visiting several of the temples and walking along the river. We found Wat Xienthong (below) to be stunning and definitely suggest stopping by. We also found several amusing signs – apparently Obama visited Luang Prabang in 2016, the first visit by a U.S. president to the country and a long overdue one considering the U.S. dropped over 2 million tons of bombs on the US at the end of the Vietnam War (more on that later).

Back at the hotel I passed out like a dead person. James had been sick for the last week or so and didn’t really have a voice for the first few days of our trip, and it appeared that now I was getting whatever he had. After a very long (4-5 hour…) nap, I woke up feeling like I had a flu. Being the amazing boyfriend he is, James ventured out to a pharmacy and brought back some medicine that you would never be able to get your hands on in the US. After taking said medicine, it was time to head out for the sunset boat cruise that we had purchased tickets for earlier in the day.

We went with Khopfa Mekong Cruise, which operates out of the Belle Rive hotel. The boat has tons of comfortable seating and plenty of snacks and drinks. This is a must-do activity in Luang Prabang in my opinion as the Mekong river just has a certain magic to it, especially at sunset. We were both in a drowsy cough syrup induced haze and had a very hard time staying awake while on such a relaxing boat ride. After docking we headed for a very quick pizza dinner at the nearby Popolo restaurant. I remember the pizza being quite good but we were so tired at that point that we did not lounge around in the restaurant for long.

Day 3 – Elephants

On our second full day we woke up bright and early again, which allowed us to have a relaxed breakfast before being picked up for our elephant experience. Luang Prabang has a handful of elephant tour operators, of which only two do not offer riding. We chose MandaLao for its seemingly ethical treatment of the elephants, and we chose to do the half day tour with one adult and one baby elephant. After a thirty-minute drive you arrive at the beautiful property, which is embedded in the jungle along the banks of the Nam Kahn river. The first ~45 minutes consisted of an education briefing with the project director, who founded the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. We learned some good tidbits, like that with the declining elephant population and disturbance of wildlife corridors, there is inbreeding among the remaining wild elephants that results in major health issues. MandaLao buys its elephants from logging camps or other, less ethical, Luang Prabang elephant centers and tries to re-assimilate them to the routines they will need to carry out in the wild before re-wilding them strategically to increase herd diversity.

After our lesson we were given some goofy looking boots and a water bottle and headed out to meet the elephants. We got to feed them some bananas, which was, as expected, very amusing. After banana time, the elephants were guided by their Mahouts to start their day of meandering around. We followed them at a distance down to the riverbank where they played in the water a bit. Unlike the ethical elephant experience I did in Sri Lanka, we did not participate in bathing them (clearly, ethical experiences are achieving new heights of being ethical). After splashing around for a while they came out of the water and started heading into the jungle. We walked with them through the jungle for about an hour, where they scratch themselves on their favorite trees and eat everything in sight. At one point they found a mango tree, which they absolutely loved. Eventually it was time to say goodbye to the elephants and head back to the center. The elephants stay out the rest of the day, walking around with the mahouts and knocking down trees to their heart’s desire.

The visit finished with a nice sit down lunch before we were driven back to the hotel.

That evening we had dinner at the highly rated and fairly upscale restaurant located in our hotel, Manda de Laos. The lily pond at night is stunning, and I’d recommend going for the ambience even if the food was poor. Luckily, I remember everything being solid to good and not unreasonably priced.

Day 4 – Kuang Si waterfalls 

We ended our visit to Laos on a high note with a visit to the Kuang Si falls. We arranged a driver through our hotel and chose to have an 8 am pickup to avoid any crowds.