Laos - Luang Prabang and Vientiane

Our arrival in Luang Prabang was not the highlight of the visit! We had emailed a reservation form to the Ancient Hotel a number of times and had not heard back from them, but as we didn't have an alternative lined up we just showed up. Alas, they told us that their email had been down for days and they had no rooms available. Philip dropped the kids and me off at a cafe (along with all of the suitcases) and set off to find a room. After about 30 minutes he came back having secured a room down the street. We dragged ourselves and the suitcases for about 5 blocks to a nondescript guesthouse. It was clean, $10/night and all ours. Everyone was very relieved.
The rest of our stay in Luang Prabang was a treat. We did move to a different guesthouse -- the double bed got a bit small for all four of us during the night -- and to the kids' delight the new room had 4 beds (as well as a view of the Mekong, and a hot shower).
Luang Prabang has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site which means that there are limits on new building, and what new building happens must be in character with its surroundings. The small town is full of beautiful French Colonial buildings, temples, markets, and cafes. While there are certainly many more tourists there now than there were a few years ago, it still feels like an oasis of calm after Thailand. Adding to this feeling are the 500+ monks who live there. We got up before 6 one morning to participate in the giving of alms to the monks. This entailed buying some rice and cakes and sitting on the side of the road and dropping the food into their bowls as they walked past. It was a lovely experience, and one that Sam in particular enjoyed.
We spent the rest of our days there visiting temples, watching monks and eating well. It was a relief being in an ex-French colony as the menu options were more varied and familiar. This was particularly good for Jack who had been subsisting on potato chips and french fries for a few weeks!
I also decided that my favorite temple of the trip so far is in Luang Prabang - Wat Xieng Thoung. It is magical. There are amazing mosaics made of colorful glass on pink painted walls, a stunning mosaic of the Tree of Life, some beautiful Buddahs and a gorgeous setting. I really hated to leave.
Another highlight of our stay was a meal at 3 Nagas - a New York Times reviewed restaurant. It was excellent and the total bill was $40 for the four of us. (And we only managed to finish about half of what we ordered!) The best part of the meal was chili paste with buffalo skin spread on dried Mekong weed. It sounds gross but it was really good.
We were very sorry to leave Luang Prabang and boarded the bus for the 8-hour trip to Vientiane with regret. We definitely would like to come back and highly recommend it to anyone.
The bus trip to Vientiane was windy and steep, and both Sam and Jack managed to get sick within the first hour. Not a great start, but the rest of the journey passed without incident. And, while 8 hours is a bit long the scenery was both beautiful and interesting. After the beauty and serenity of Luang Prabang, Vientiane didn't immediately charm us. We took a communal taxi from the bus station into town (really the only option) and somehow managed to get dropped off quite a long way from our hotel. For at least the hundredth time we cursed the amount of luggage we're traveling with and slowly made our way down the street. The hotel was very nice, but it could only take us for the first night so we didn't want to get too comfortable. Luckily we found another hotel down the street (for only $15/night) that could take us for the rest of our stay so it wasn't too difficult.
Our stay in Vientiane coincided with two big events - a conference for all French speaking countries and a huge local festival. Apparently the capital had been cleaned up tremendously for the conference, and even school was cancelled to cut the amount of traffic. We found the amount of traffic to be so small that we couldn't imagine that it was really necessary!
Like Luang Prabang there are lots of cafes and great places to eat in Vientiane. We enjoyed brioche, croissant and cafe au lait for breakfast and again Jack could find food to eat. We even found an Italian pizzeria for dinner! We rented bikes one day and cycled all over the place with the kids sitting on seats on the back. As the days passed we really came to like Vientiane. We visited some lovely temples (one with over 10,000 Buddahs), the kids played on a bouncy slide at the local fair, and just enjoyed riding around.
We also had the good fortune to meet a friend-of-a-friend who lives in Vientiane. Yasmine was lovely and had us over for dinner to her house. Her husband works for the European Commission and they are based in Vientiane for two years. They live in a traditional Lao house just outside of town and it was a real treat to get to meet Yasmine and to get to learn more about what it's like to live in Laos. She also kindly gave me some English cold medicine, which was a lifesaver!
We have had a really lovely time in Laos and wish that we had allocated more time to spend here. Next stop, Hanoi. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of Thanksgiving dinner we will be able to find there!