Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang. What a pleasant surprise! I didn't really know what to expect when going into Laos. Even though we had done a lot of research I still didn't really know what we were going to find. The city of Luang Prabang is actually a World Heritage Site due to its 30 something temples (a lot of temples for a pretty small city). The city has a lot of French/European influence and we discovered lots of cute little sidewalk cafes and restaurants. I really felt like I was in Europe....with a Thailand flair. It was a very interesting, and at times, confusing city. Laos is an extremely poor country. The Laos Kip is not worth anything yet everything seemed to be really expensive when converted to Thai Baht or US dollars. It was not at all what I was expecting. The city was clean, the people were extremely friendly and there were a ton of foreigners around. I had no idea that Laos was such a popular tourist destination.

We spent five days in Luang Prabang. We went on a tour of the Pak Ou caves which is an ancient temple built into a cliff that now houses thousands of Buddha statues. We also took a trip to the waterfall nearby which, despite the rain, was amazing! The rest of the time we simply wandered the streets, hung out at cafes and bookstores and spent way too much Kip at the awesome night market! :)  It was such a fun city to just hang out and relax. A nice surprise!  It was a good change to get out of Thailand for a bit but now its back to Thailand and the beautiful beaches!