Features

Luang Prabang: When Dawn Breaks

30 Nov 2009 by intern22

The Unesco-listed Laotian city of Luang Prabang is emerging as the latest place to visit for a good number of reasons, Gemma Price reports

Waking up in Luang Prabang is a uniquely sensory experience that enthrals even the most-jaded traveller. I rose early, throwing off the covers to draw the curtains as night’s dark blanket stole back across the city like a thief. The golden dawn light seeped along the heady mix of gilded temple roofs, French-colonial buildings and traditional wooden houses like incandescent syrup. At street level, Theravada monks, swathed in bright saffron robes, clutched burnt sienna parasols as they passed by on their route to collect alms. Vividly garbed hill tribes mingled with the locals and visitors already thronging the streets, preparing to offer donations of food and money to “make merit” before going about their daily business.

Luang Prabang

Nestled at the confluence of the Nam Khan and Mekong rivers in northern Laos, Luang Prabang was the former royal capital and seat of government until the communist takeover in 1975. It was a key part of French-colonial Indochina until the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 (despite the fact that Laos claimed its independence from its foreign overlords in 1945). Its magnificently preserved fusion of historical 19th- and 20th-century European-style and Lao urban structures prompted Unesco to add it to the World Heritage List in 1995, and this has played a major role in the protection and preservation of Luang Prabang’s romantic townscape.

Broad cobbled thoroughfares parallel the river, flanked by swaying bougainvilleas, twin-gabled wooden stilted houses and two-storey colonial brick and stucco villas with pitched tile roofs – a French provincial design modified with balconies, verandahs and internal corridors to make the hot and humid climate more bearable. Life in Luang Prabang starts early, and even at this time of morning, people were already gathered at street-side coffee stalls, sipping the local tar-like brew and propping open wooden shuttered windows to pronounce their cafés, restaurants, shops and tour centres open for business.

If you had visited back when the town first reopened to tourism in 1989, the scene would have been very different. The communist collectivisation of industry eventually caused the departure of almost 100,000 intellectuals, entrepreneurs and high society, rendering Luang Prabang a ghost town of crumbling shop fronts and decaying villas. There was little in the way of infrastructure or industry.

But in the decade following the fall of the USSR and Soviet Bloc governments, the town slowly re-emerged as a centre for commerce. The sleepy city was reinvigorated by an influx of independently owned restaurants, handicraft shops and art galleries and boutique hotels and guesthouses.

Villa Maly, where we stayed, is a 33-room property anchored by the 1938 home of Princess Khampieng and Prince Khamtan, grandson of 19th century’s King Zakarine, and is a perfect example of Luang Prabang’s revived and captivating heritage.

The original historic house was home to the couple and their four children while Khamtan served as prefect of the provinces of Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Sayabouri. After he died in a plane crash, his wife remained in the house until her death. Today, their influence echoes throughout Villa Maly, an open invitation to experience the elegance of Indochinese era life first-hand.

Located in a former royal enclave of garden homes, stylised jasmine lotus blooming at the entrance serves as both a fountain and gateway to the vibrant, rambling gardens that lace the compound. Each of the buildings is named after a flower – the original building, now dubbed Plumeria (frangipani), is surrounded by seven additional luxurious annexes Lotus, Heliconia, Hibiscus, Passiflore, Gardenia, Amarante and Orchide. Although the royal family’s pool remains in its original location, it has been imagined anew in variegated black and white mosaic tile framed by an exquisite deck of tropical hardwood.

Each of the 28 Superior Rooms and five Deluxe Rooms looks out onto either the pool or garden, averaging 33sqm of space subtly arranged to incorporate the time-honoured Laotian architecture with an essence of the colonial past. Wooden parquet floors, four-poster beds, mahogany armouries and classic fans are surrounded with ornately decorated walls with rich hues of colours and textures. Every room is equipped with modern amenities and features an ensuite bathroom surfaced in striking squares of black slate, with sinks sunk into the mouth of big-bellied jars set against boldly coloured mirror and fixture consoles.

The development was overseen by one of Indochina’s foremost interior designers, Eric Verschelden, and each room stands as an individual testament to continental aesthetics that reigned in the 1930s and 1940s.

“The idea was to create a hotel that defies labelling,” said Verschelden. “It’s not merely colonial, or merely art deco, or merely tropical Asian. It’s more distinctive, a place we hope our guests won’t confuse with any other place they’ve ever stayed. We’ve imagined Villa Maly as the place Hemingway would have stayed had he journeyed to Luang Prabang, or Marguerite Duras. We’ve got great literary ambitions.”

A bird\\'s eye view of Luang Prabang

And with increased accessibility – a number of regional airlines serve the city and recently constructed roads link landlocked Laos to its neighbouring China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand – has come an upsurge in visitor numbers. Even in the throes of global economic crisis, Laos continues to top lists of the world’s must-go places, and the New York Times listed this enigmatic country as the number one hottest travel destination for 2008. After opening in October last year, Villa Maly’s management reported a 50 to 80 percent high season baseline occupancy level, citing the town’s Unesco-heritage status as key factor for the tourism buzz.

Thankfully, Unesco is keeping a close eye on things. The unstoppable march of modern development in other Indochinese hubs may have taken its toll – in Ho Chi Minh City, many antillan mansions have been replaced almost overnight by slick, shiny glass skyscrapers – but Luang Prabang has remained a perfectly preserved vestige of its past. New commercial highways give the town a wide berth, and large vehicles are banned from the rustic central streets. Most people get from point A to point B by motorbike or bicycle, but Luang Prabang’s compact dimensions mean you can easily explore on foot. Although you can see most sights in a two- or three-day visit, the city’s ambience and authentic charm keeps visitors lingering.

The daily alms-giving is certainly a spectacle, although some denounce it as being more a tourist circus than a spiritual affair. A local café owner told me conspiratorially over my latte how many monks had fallen ill after eating bad food from tourists, sold to them by unscrupulous locals eager to make a quick buck. “They announced that they would discontinue the tradition, but local authorities threatened to simply dress lay people up in robes to keep the photo opportunity going,” said Miss Puk. “In the end, the monks decided to just keep going.”

True or not, hearing the temple drums break the morning silence as hundreds of statuesque shaven-headed Theravada disciples walked through the mist along Sisavangvong Road to the assembled devout is one striking image of Luang Prabang seared into my memory.

Buddhas

After receiving offerings and giving blessings in return, the monks return to their homes in the city’s plethora of pagodas, gradually followed by handfuls of tourists. Built by King Saisetthathirat in 1560, Wat Xieng Thong is one of Luang Prabang’s oldest and most stunning temples. Located a stone’s throw from the confluence of the Mekong and Khan rivers, the temple’s low sweeping roof shelters a rare reclining Buddha that dates back to the temple’s construction and which travelled to the World’s Fair in Paris in 1931. Each of the buildings is adorned by vivid glass mosaics of popular folk stories and Buddhist teachings, and you’ll also find the funeral chariot of King Sisavang Vong carved by venerated Lao sculptor Thid Tun and emblazoned with a seven-headed naga (snake) enrobed within one structure.

Wat Wisunalat is best known for its gigantic golden Buddha in the sim (worship hall), the largest in town at 6m. Constructed in 1512, it held the Pra Bang Buddha from 1513 to 1894, after which the statue was moved to Wat Mai, another of the city’s most eminent centres of worship. Here, a golden bas-relief façade tells the story of Phravet, one of Buddha’s last reincarnations.

Another of the city’s must-sees is Wat That Chom Si, located 150m and 300 thigh-punishing steps above the city at the top of Mount Pousi. The golden-spired stupa is a great point of reference as it can be seen from most parts of Luang Prabang, and it’s from here the luridly cacophonic New Year procession sets every April. The hill itself is studded with small temples and images of Buddha, and is best explored early in the morning or late afternoon. I chose the latter, and the cool breeze and shimmering golden sunset was my welcome reward for the meandering two-hour sightseeing climb.

Unlike other Buddhist cultures which frown upon fraternisation between monks and tourists, I found that many were keen to invite me to see their lodgings and to exercise their curiosity and their English language skills by asking me about my hometown. My new friends made great impromptu temple tour guides, sharing many stories about day-to-day life in their wat (temple) and rendering my heavy guidebook rather useless.

The Royal Palace museum provided another, albeit less interactive insight into Luang Prabang’s heritage. Built for King Sisavang Vong in the 1900s, it remained the royal residence until the communist Pathet Lao seized control of the country in 1975. Today, the Lao and French-style compound houses artefacts that formerly belonged to the country’s rulers, and although the collection is scarce, it’s still interesting.

I began my tour by walking the length of the long porch to one of the museum’s top attractions, a replica of a golden standing Buddha given to King Fa Ngum by a Khmer king. The original, cast in Sri Lanka in the first century AD, was known as the Prabang (which translates to “holy image”) and was the town’s namesake. The busts of the last dynasty of kings are also worth a look, as is the central throne room is done in colourful glass mosaics dating from a renovation in the 1930s, although the large, spartan bedrooms have little finery left after the departure of the last king. The palace also hosts a troupe of dancers who perform at the Royal Theatre, and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, all visitors can take part in a historical reenactment of the Ramayana for about US$15 onwards.

Mekong River

But it’s not just Luang Prabang’s town that intrigues and entrances. The coffee-coloured rivers that snake past the city are a key part of the experience. Lao folklore tells how the ridges on either side of the undulating Mekong are the recumbent bodies of men and women who were rewarded with eternal rest along the banks, and a cruise along its shores is a must-do for first timers. One popular day trip is 25km upriver to the twin caves Tham Ting and Tham Phun, known as the Pak Ou caves, where thousands of Buddha images have been left by the faithful. The two-hour jaunt was not so much about the cave itself than the journey, passing local fishermen playing out finely-woven nets from barely river-worthy bamboo boats and children waving from the boughs of spindly trees protruding resolutely from the banks as we chugged by. We pulled in at different spots, once to stroll around a local silk-weaving village with its stilt houses and menagerie of free-range animals, and again to sample the local fire-water in Ban Xang Hai.

“Try it,” Nam the boat man told me, winking coquettishly and proffering an earthen jar. The village itself was once famous for its pottery, but is now better known for its rice wine, made from fermenting local grains with Mekong water. You can drink the first cloudy brew straight from the pot, but the more finely distilled alcohol packs more of a punch, particularly the 55 percent “Men’s Lao Lao”. “Make your chest hairy!” Nam proclaimed exuberantly. Coughing, I nodded in bleary-eyed agreement.

Aside from drinking with the locals or at one of the city’s wealth of cafés or restaurants, Luang Prabang lacks a nightlife per se, with most of the locals hitting the hay before 11pm. The city’s main after-dark activity is the night market, and as the sun begins to set, wheeled stalls are retrieved from their daytime cubbyholes all over the city to their designated spots along Xiang Thong and Setthathilat streets. Lanterns of saa paper – a local handicraft made from stripped mulberry tree bark and often embedded with whole dried leaves of flowers – are strung from stall to bustling stall.

Everywhere, people are admiring and fingering handwoven cotton and silk textiles, Hmong embroidered and appliqued bed covers and wall hangings.

While I did most of my shopping on the first night, the fun and gaiety drew me back again and again, and the stroll through the brightly coloured stalls pooled with light, just the perfect digestif to round up a perfect night in Luang Prabang.

FAST FACTS

GETTING THERE

Luang Prabang’s isolation is a big part of the appeal, but it does mean that getting there is often time consuming and/or expensive. Bangkok Air flies direct between Luang Prabang and Bangkok, while Vietnam Airlines flies from Siem Reap and Hanoi (via Vientiane, sometimes operated as a codeshare with Lao Airlines). Lao Airlines flies from Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kunming and Bangkok and other Thai airports.

The capital Vientiane in the south is served by many international airlines, and you can choose to travel overland to Luang Prabang via Vang Vieng.

However, while the bus journey is scenic and extremely affordable at around US$7, the total journey time is a gruelling 12 hours. To shorten travel time to around eight hours, hire a car for US$120 to US$150. It’s possible to travel overland from neighbouring countries, but this can be tough going for independent travellers and takes at least two full days.

CLIMATE

The rainy season runs from May through October and the dry season is from November to April. For the most part, Laos is hot, although there is a good deal of fluctuation between summer and winter temperatures at higher elevations.

VISA

Visitors can now obtain a 30-day tourist visa on arrival for US$30 to US$42 per person based on nationality. Simply bring along two passport photos and fill up the application form at the port of arrival.

CURRENCY

Kip is the national currency, but many places, particularly the night market, will accept Thai baht and US dollars. ATMs distribute kip with a withdrawal limit of around US$80 per transaction.

DINING

Upscale restaurants can be found at the 3 Nagas hotel (Ban Vatnong, Sakkaline Road, 856 71 253 888). To satisfy both your eye and your taste buds, try the Beer Laos snacking platter of local specialities while enjoying an ice-cold brew and the view at the excellent Tamarind Café opposite Wat Nong.

TRAVEL AGENTS

The logistics mean that many visitors include Luang Prabang as part of a multi-destination trip – visiting Cambodia’s Angkor Wat or Hanoi, for example – or take a longer tour through Laos. And if you have time, this is a great way to fully appreciate Laos’ wealth of unique natural and cultural highlights. Some of the reliable tour companies include Exotissimo, Trails of Indochina and Buffalo Tours.

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