Travel Laos: Luang Prabang Adventures

Two friends have recently asked me on separate occasions about Lao Prabang and I realised I never put together a post of an amazingly surreal and relaxing time I had there in 2010; from riding elephants, eating amazing croissants and crepes for breakfast daily (All thanks to the French leaving behind a tad of romantic colonism), hiking up water falls and swinging down, eating our way through the night street market.

street food laos

laos grill

Instead of going with trishaws or the tuk tuk vans, get a bicycle and bike outside the town centre to get out to the waterfalls, on the way you’ll pass the city’s best bakery – Joma Bakery, serving croissants and fresh breads baked daily. Grab a takeaway as you head out towards the waterfalls.

joma bakery

Happy times riding elephants.

laos elephant

luang prabang elephants

How we ended up in Laos was a different story. Then I was living in Beijing and during the long Chinese New Year holidays, I went to Yunnan, in the South of China and that too, proved too much with the insane holiday crowds and all the fireworks and fire crackers going off dangerously at all hours of day and night. My friend and I spontaneously took a 9 hour overnight bus (double decker beds I kid you not!) and crossed the Boten border (me without a visa, Thank you Singapore for your great Asean relations and my German friend paid 75USD at the border to enter Laos. We then hitched a ride and got into Luang Prabang. We were lucky to get a booking at Mekong Estate in a duplex right in the city centre, a short walk from the morning alms ceremony, where we spent 5 days, each residence comes with bicycles in the courtyard and a lady that comes in to make a fresh breakfast of croissants and the whole works every morning.

luang prabang mekong estate

Stay: Mekong Estate

 

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