The Adventures of Brian & Julia

Hey Everybody
In the interest of getting caught up (we’re in Vietnam and still writing about Laos) here is a brief rundown of our time in Luang Prabang, Laos.

After the bustle and din of most Thai cities, Luang Prabang was a pleasant change of pace. The Lao people are famously laid back; It’s apparent in every aspect of day to day life. Rickshaw drivers sleep away the hot part of the day in their passenger seats, and shopkeepers mind their stores from their doorways, chatting with friends from the restaurant next door.

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The average tourist here isn’t the typical 20-something budget backpacker found in the dive bars and dingy guesthouses of much of Southeast Asia, either. The restaurants are discernibly more upscale, though still very affordable by western standards. Even the simple guesthouses are pin-neat and charming, sparing expense by forgoing TVs and air conditioning for books and ceiling fans.

The night market is probably the epitome of the contrast between Laos and its neighbors. The markets of Chiang Mai were often too crowded to walk through comfortably, and lined with hungry hawkers chanting their sales pitches incessantly. The night market of Luang Prabang is laid out in neat rows, mood-lit and almost solemnly quite. It’s a much nicer experience, and I would bet equally effective in parting tourists from their money.

We spent a little too long here, as we tend to do in places we like. The Lao government has a tourism campaign built around the slogan “Stay another day”. It’s simple, but you can’t argue with its effectiveness. You find a good guesthouse for $9 a night, a restaurant with cheap beer, great food and an amazing view of the river, and before you know it, it’s been 6 days.

If we hadn’t already used almost of a week of our 30 day Vietnam visas, we might have stayed even longer. More than any other place we’ve been on this trip so far, Laos heard us saying “I could see coming back here.”