Royal Palace Museum and Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang, Laos

We spent a day visiting the former Palace of the Lao Royal Family.  The palace grounds were directly across from our hotel in Luang Prabang. They are only open early in the morning, then closed for a couple hours at lunch, and then open again from 130 to 4. Inside the palace, as is customary in most places in Luang Prabang, no one is allowed to wear shoes. The palace is absolutely gorgeous and refreshingly simple and understated, something I cannot say about some of the other royal homes I have visited in my life(not too many.) I believe I already described the Palace a bit in my other posts, but it is worth talking about it a bit more. The entrance was a large grand room with doorways on all four sides, one leading outside, the one straight ahead leading to the throne room, and on each side large galleries, one a dining hall, the other a sitting room. The tour goes counter clockwise around the rooms of the palace, which all connect, forming a large circle. No pictures are allowed inside unfortunately, and no books of the palace were for sale anywhere. The first room after the entrance room was a large sitting room with murals from floor to ceiling. The murals were in a sort of impressionist, neo Van Gogh style. They were from waist level, to the top of the 15 foot ceiling, and all the way around the room, which was at least 25 feet long by 15 feet wide. The murals depicted everyday life in Luang Prabang and the countryside of Laos, scenes or rivers, markets, strees, and elephants. From there, we saw several hallways filled with large steel drums, very intricately designed, and then entered the main throne room(directly ahead of the doorway.)  The throne room was decorated floor to ceiling in dichro glass mosaics. The mosaics depicted more life from Laos, and were made using glass from Japan. I wont describe the Palace completely, but other rooms were filled antique Buddhas from all over Asia, and some over a thousand years old. The Buddhas were made of gold, clay, quartz crystal, wood, and any other material that could be fashioned in to the appropriate shape. The King and Queen had seperate bedrooms. The rooms were massive, at least 25 feet by 15 feet, and had giant furniture. Despite the scale of the furniture, the rooms seemed rather empty, with tons of open floor space. Again, the highlights for me were the gifts from other countries, especially the moon pieces from the USA.

Overall the Palace was spectacular, yet understated. It was very stylish, but totally not overdone. It was simple, and tastefully furnished. The art, furniture, and belongings of the Royal family were all oversized, but because of the scale of the Palace, they fit in perfectly. The Palace overall was maybe only 15 rooms and at most 10,000 square feet. This made it large, and grandiose, but by no means gaudy or out of place in Lao. It was the most beautifully simple, and livable royal palace I have ever seen, and the kind of place a normal person may actually want to live, not just dream of living in.

Wat Xieng Thong was quite cool as well. I wont go in to depth on it, but the grounds were surrounded by small, very intricately buildings that were all quite impressive. One building was a sort of garage for the Royal funeral carriage. This building had another amazing "tree of life" mosaic, once again made of dichro glass. The main Wat(temple), shown in the picture with Jin holding the postcard, is the oldest Wat in Luang Prabang and one of the most beautiful. The Wat on the Royal Palace grounds is brighter and flashier, but that may just be because it is almost done being restored, while Wat Xieng Thong seems to be in a bit more "original" condition. Inside was the usual oversided Buddha shrine(old hat by now) and amazing woodwork everywhere. People came in and out, taking off their shoes at the door, and bowing to their knees offering prayers to the Buddha. Me and Jin relaxed in the dark shade inside for a few minutes, trying to save ourselves from the baking heat of the outdoors.

Overall, the Wat and Palace are two of the highlights of Luang Prabang. The whole city is amazing, and these places only add to it, but certainly do not define the class and beauty of the city. The night market, stunning fruit trees, and riverfront walkways make Luang Prabang what it is, and without any of the elements, it would not be the same.

 

Kuang Xi Waterfall, Luang Prabang

That was the coolest day in Luang Prabang. It was so hot and humid there...

Tham Ting Cave, Luang Prabang LAOS

Luang Prabang's peninsula

Bungalows on the edge of the Mae Kok River, towards the tip of Luang Prabang's peninsula

One of Luang Prabang's many narrow alleyways

some of the many beautiful trees scattered everywhere throughout L.P.

Looking West (?) across the peninsula of LP with the Mekong River below.

Sunset from the highest hill in town(100m.) Looking over the Mekong.

Getting into Laos

Crossing in to Laos from China, we had to walk across the border and meet the bus on the other side.

View of Sisavangvong Road in Luang Prabang, day and night. This is the main street, and home of the night market.

The view of the night market from our hotel, Thalien Guest House, on Sisavangvong Road, Luang Prabang

Jin at the Night Market on Sisavangvong Road, Luang Prabang.

Scenes from the night market.

Luang Prabang!

Ok, Jin just yelled at me for posting too long, and blocking out all the pictures she just posted below! Please check page 2, they are pretty cool, and basically recap the end of our stay in China.
We got to Luang Prabang on the night of the 1st, and caught a small Tuk Tuk(motorcycle with a small truck bed on the back) to the main street. We arrived at about 8pm, and were so happy to finally be somewhere, besides on a bus! The city is more like a country town, until you get to the main street on the peninsula. The peninsula of Luang Prabang lies between the Mekong River, and another River and the entire thing is protected as a UNESCO world Heritage site. It so so beautiful here, and the main street is closed down to cars and features a market in the center of the road about 3 blocks long from 5pm until 10 every night. We walked down the main street through the market, and looked for the cheap hostels listed in the LP(lonely planet.) The only ones we found weren't that nice, and fairly unimpressive, and nearly double the cost of that listed in the LP.... listed at 30,000kip per room, actually 5o,000. Luckily, we found an awesome little hotel in the middle of the main street shopping area. Our room is ultra clean, very cool, super quiet, and seemingly rather secure. The owner is really nice, and we were able to score the room for 50,000 kip a night, or about $6.25! A bit more than we had been paying in China, but a lot nicer! Plus, our room, although not underground has the feel of a basement, with two eternally running vent fans pointing outside, glass bricks for windows, and a super powerful oscillating fan pointed straight at our bed! Not too bad!
Luang Prabang is amazing. The city is so quiet and beautiful. There is zero hustle and bustle here, and it feels like Hawaii 70 years ago(or probably thailand around that time.) There is backpackers and travellers from all over the world everywhere, and everyone is just chilling on "Lao time." The night market is beautiful, and has awesome tshirts, silly Lao basketball jerseys, baggy long hippy shorts and pants made of cool ethnic home made fabrics, tons of wood stuff, crystals, fruit smoothies, silver items, womens clothing, and all kinds of other handmade nick nacks and souvenirs! The restaurants here have amazing Lao food, Thai food, Indian food, French food(Lao was a french colony), and general western food! Everything is between 8000 to 60,000 Kip, or 1 to 8 US dollars(exchange rate is 1 dollar to 8200kip)! t shirts are 25000 kip, a pound of mangos is 6000 Kip(best mangos since hawaii!)
The town is sooo chill, no hurry at all, nada. There are amazing cafes with awesome coffee, with small tables and comfy chairs under amazing trees covered in fruit! The rivers are on both sides of the peninsula, making the area about 20 blocks long by about 3 blocks wide. We are right in the middle. Everyone is chilling, and there is basically nothing to do, but wander around, eat, drink, sit by the river, drink coffee, rent bicycles, go to the Wat(temples), the small museums, or take a tuk tuk to the waterfalls outside of town.
We did basically nothing on our first full day here. We just sat around and drank coffee, ate bagels(YESSS!), looked at books at the book exchange, walked to the river, and were just happy to not be on a bus! Today, monday, we awoke and ate more bagels(my idea!), drank more coffee(my idea again!), then went to the town market, which is very strange, and then the Royal Palace, which is now turned in to a museum. The Phosy market, is part flea market, part fruit stand, butcher, vegetable market, part fake stuff market, with a lot of cell phones, home items, plastic stuff and other things mixed in. Basically a Lao walmart. Not a whole lot of great stuff was there, but we did get some more great mangos(yes!), some laundry detergent to wash our clothes in the sink, some water buffalo jerky, and a really silly fake Casio watch with a hilarious multicolored light show for a light! The watch was the highlight for me. It is literally the exact watch I wore from when i was 7 to 12 years old, the old school black plastic casio with the day, date and time listed on it, but the light, instead of the normal white or yellow, flashes from green to red to blue.... basically like a Phish concert! So i'm happy! Plus it took the place of my much more hip looking 3dollar Chinese watch that broke in 2 weeks!
After the light show, i mean market, me and Jin hopped the Tuk Tuk back to our hood, and went to the Royal Palace Museum which is right across from our hostel. The palace is amazing, and the perfect example of Lao style. Very subdued, beautiful and chill, but with lots of taste! The first room had amazing murals all over the wall, all the way around the large 10mx6m room and up to the 5m tall ceilings, all pictures of Lao life in the 1930s but in a Van Gogh sorta style... Super cool!
The rest of the museum had a cool throne, a ton of 1000 plus year old buddhas collected by the king, some old buddhist artwork, really chill art deco furniture, and some amazing Japanese Glass mosaics covering the wall of another even more giant room. The Dichromatic glass depicted life in Lao and was really cool, and totally covered the huge throne room walls! We got to see the king and queens seperate bedrooms, and the rest of the palace too, including some more cool crystals, swords, artwork, and gifts given to the king and queens from countries all around the world! The highlight of the gifts for me was a Lao flag that was taken to the moon aboard Apollo 11, and some tiny moon rocks given to the king of Lao by the US govt. Another cool item was the silver box given to Lao by JFK and dated February of 1963. After the palace, we were starving, so we came to a local restaurant with free WiFi and got some awesome Thai soups, and Pad Se Ew(which is totally different than the ones I eat back home.) I've now typed a novel, and if anyone is still reading, Thank You for your stamina and undying interest! Jin also finally got to post all the pics she has been editing from our trip to China, and which I have now buried on page 3! She is great though, and I super appreciate all her tireless picture editing to preserve our trip online through this blog! The net here is very slow, and this cafe(one of the many in town that offers free wifi), totally empty at our 4pm dinner, has the fastest internet of any internet cafe in town....
Ok, i'm off to happy hour with Jin, she has almost finished reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe while I have written this, and we better pay and get out, before this restaurant kicks us out! Love to everyone, and check out the pics on the next few pages!

We made it to Laos!!!! Jin is an official Road Warrior!

I guess the title says it all, we made it to Laos..... at last! We are now in Luang Prabang in central part of northern Laos. This city was described as "one of the most romantic cities in SE Asia" by the Lonely Planet, and I'd have to agree(although it also the first city we've stayed at in SE Asia!)
We had a harrowing 26 plus hour bus ride from Kunming, China to here. After that i'd definitely add Jin to the "seasoned road warrior" status... It dwarfed the 18 hour train ride we had the night before from Guelin to Kunming.
i guess i'll recap our road here. We left Yangshuo, China on the 29th and caught an hour and a half minibus to Guelin. From there we caught a train around 630pm. Our hard beds were comfortable as always, and our train had more foreign tourists on it than all previous train rides from the entire 8 weeks before combined. We had a great time hanging with a guy from Israel, a girl from the Czech Republic, and a really nice couple from Australia(who had spent the past month in Yangshuo climbing the awesome rocks nearby.) The train was relaxing, and I got to do some research on Lao and continue reading my book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Arriving in Kunming around noon on the 30th, we were worried that it would be difficult to find train or bus tickets to Laos because of the May 1 Labor Day holiday, which is a huge event in China. Fortunately, after we got off the train, we were able to buy a bus ticket immedietely for later that night. Lacking any real info on Laos, and unsure of where exactly we wanted to start, we initially chose to get off at Udomxai, in northern Laos. However, after consulting the LP, we decided that it wasnt really the kind of place we wanted to spend our first days in the country at. Apparently Udomxai is filled with Chinese workers who have come to the country seeking employment and have turned it in to a sort of truck stop fronteir town of immigrants and with more Chinese culture than Lao. So, we talked to our bus driver and he changed our ticket to 4hrs down the road, Luang Prabang. Not bad for an extra 3 dollars!
We spent the day in Kunming, which is a pretty nice city as far as places in China go. It has been described as the florida of china, with a large retirement population and awesome weather year round. Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic on a city bus after going to the post office to lighten our bags a little(sending stuff home,) and only got to the bus station 25 minutes before our bus left for Laos!
The bus was nice, and pretty luxurious compared to the other buses at the bus station in Kunming. It had a wide aisle and small double beds on one side and very skinny twin beds on the other side. Initially me and Jin thought we had seperate beds, but we actually had a double bed(actually about the size of a really really short(5'4" tall) twin bed.) At first we were super excited at how big and luxurious our beds were, but then we were told we were sharing a bed, and i'm sure the look on our face had more than a twinkle of unease.
The trip started off fine, heading down the roads of China towards the border. It was quite curvy in China, but that was just the beginning!
Around 10pm, we decided to head to bed. Maybe 15 minutes later the bus stopped and I thought we were taking a bathroom break.....On the side of the highway. But then we started going again.... Then the bus stopped a couple minutes later.... Then we started going again..... Then we stopped a couple minutes later..... This went on at least 15 times. the engine seemed to just stop running while we driving down the highway. It even stopped running in a tunnel, which is when I almost went and killed the bus driver for getting me killed in a Chinese tunnel(a constant fear of mine throughout china, tons of tunnels, with horrible crazy drivers passing everywhere, UGH.... AHHHH!!!)
Then we stopped again, and the drivers(at least 4 of them) got out and managed to actually fix the problem, to my shock! We then continued on and I semi fell asleep by midnight. The curvy road caused us to roll around all night, banging our legs and bodies on the windows and bars on the side of the bed. I definitely slept a little, i'm just not exactly sure when. I woke up around 5:30am in Mengla near the border. We were told that the bus couldn't cross the border until it opened around 8 or 9, so we would stop for a few hours.
I got an hour of amazing sleep, which did wonders for me. Unfortunately, close to 7am, I was awoken by a man, we think, who wanted to exchange my US dollars for Lao Kip. Jin was angry that he woke us up, and wouldn't let me do any business with him! I would have sworn that he was a girl had I not opened my eyes; we still aren't positive.
The Chinese border crossing was uneventful, and we made it to the Lao border area by around 9ish. There was a huge push of people trying to get to the tiny makeshift border stamping building. People were pushing, passing their passports to their friends at the front of the line, and everyone had some form of currency tucked in to their passport as they handed it to the Lao Guard! after a wait for quite a while, we were able to get to the front of the line, where Jin got her passport stamped. After putting no money inside her passport, the guard asked for 20yuen, or a bit more than 3US dollars. We gave him 20,000 Kip, or around $2.50. Jin was not amused, but I thought this was a classic border crossing moment! She was even more upset when I made it out without bribing him, but I guess that is one perk of being an American. 3 dollars may seem small, but if you imagine 1000, or even 300 Chinese people each giving you 3 dollars, that adds up to a fortune real fast, especially in Lao, where a decent hotel is 7 dollars, and a meal is 3 bucks!
I was feeling pretty alright when we got back on the bus. About a half hour later, we got to a "weigh station," which really seemed more like an excuse to pay off more Lao officials! We were told it would be at least 2 or 3 hours, but after our smooth bus drivers talked to the guards, and I'm sure exchanged a bit more Kip, we made it out in less than an hour! Woo Hoo!
From there, the trip got wayyyy worse! We had about 300Km of dirt highway on the curviest mountain roads you've ever been on! imagine driving to an unheard of Colorado mountain town, on a dirt road in a 60ft long bus, lying in a bed for 10 plus hours! It was insane! I was semi sick feeling the entire day, rolling back and forth around every curve! Jin wasnt much better. The bus just keeped bumping and we kept bouncing and rolling.... all day!
at last, we made it! around 8pm. I swear i had been on a small boat on stormy seas for the last day and a half.
Luang Prabang! At Last!

Dehang, hike to the waterfalls

On the way there.
Liusha Waterfall, the Highest Waterfall in China
Snacks from the river on the walk back to Dehang!

Yangshuo 2

Bike ride.

Yangshuo, China

Moon hill.
At Kaya, the most popular reggae bar in the world that barely ever plays music.
On the Li river boat ride see the 20 yuan bill view.