Our Trip

We arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos on December 19, 2009. Luang Prabang sits right on the Mekong River with beautiful scenery and lots of opportunities to see locals and how they live their lives on the river. We combined this trip with Vietnam for our Christmas holiday. We were a little worried that this would be just a so-so trip but it turned out absolutely fabulous.

We stayed at an awesome little boutique hotel called Lotus Villa only a block away from the action in the quaint town of Luang Prabang. We picked this quest house because the owners care deeply about the Lao people and recognize that just outside of Luang Prabang are some of the poorest people in the world and because of that, they work very closely with the local orphanage helping and caring for the nearly 500 orphans.

Back to the guest house, the courtyard was beautiful and breakfast excellent. We stayed in the Orchid suite that was newly renovated and established for families. Our room had one king bed and two twin beds in one overly large suite that can be divided with wooden panels for privacy. The staff was amazingly nice and the owners were readily available to share their insights into the activities around the area. Andrew, one of the owners, noted that most guests come only for a few days and fall in love with the beautiful surroundings and extremely friendly Lao people; they almost always come back and stay longer the second time. We were here for three nights and could have easily doubled it.

We arrived in mid-day after a ($6.00 taxi ride from the airport) and after checking in went straight to the Tamarind restaurant which was about ½ a block from our Villa. This was a good place to start our trip as the menu alone had lots of interesting facts and do’s and don’ts in this quiet town. The genuine Lao food was also very good with excellent smoothies and drinks.

One thing about Luang Prabang is that it is a very slow, spiritual and laid back town. We really enjoyed this lifestyle especially coming from Shanghai where it’s loud, crowded and over-stimulating most of the time.

Right away we noticed the monks. We’d read about them but this is the first time we actually got to hang out with them for a few days.

While walking through the town we saw hundreds of monks/novices and heard daily chanting from the temples. Every morning they walked past our hotel to collect alms. Alms is rice given by the locals to the monks for food. The rice is a way of paying respect to ancestors which promises a better afterlife. The ceremony happens every morning at dawn and is a beautiful, peaceful, enchanting site to see. I loved this time of the day.

Our time in Luang Prabang was spent at the night market, shopping, bike riding and watching the monks. They had a horrible time trying to figure out our family. In Lao, international adoption is not allowed, so we had many stares of curiosity from the monks and the people. Many locals came up to us and called Sophie a “Lao woman” then had a look of utter confusion as to why her brother was blonde.

Our excursions included Elephant riding and zip lining at Tad Sae Water Falls and a trip to Kuang si Falls for swimming and sight seeing. Excellent adventures and lots of culture pretty much sums up our time in Laos. We’d go back in a second!