ABOUT
LUANG PRABANG
Luang
Prabang maybe is not so "off the beaten track" as you
could think about a town in the mountainous
north of Laos, but definitely it's a place you cannot dislike.
This small town is plunged among green mountains at the junction
of the Mekong and the Nam rivers. I still remember the view
that I admired from the top of the hill towering from the town centre:
the contrast of the red colour of these snaking large rivers with
the bright green of mountains and the golden glittering of a big
temple that towers far away.
I immediately understood I would have had nice time in Luang since I arrived at the
harbour by boat when nobody bothered me and I felt relaxed by the place; "laid
back" is the right word to adjective the Laos and in particular this town. I settle
down in a fresh 15 beds dorm where I spent some nights knowing a lot of guys travelling
around the world with tons of great stories to tell.
And what about the food? Excellent!! The best moment of the whole day was the dinner:
strolling in the main way and tasting everykind of strange stuff from the stalls adobating the long
street. A lot of excellent fried stuff and the snake juice, I mean a jar plenty
of reptilies dip in a superalcholic fluid.
Luang Prabang is quite rapresantative of the laotian atmospehere, being quite small
it's not in contrast with the surroundings despite tourism signs here are as much evident
as nowhere in the north of the country: travel agencies, internet café', renting places,
photoshops, souvenir shops but concentrated in the main way without spoiling the whole
town. Anyway I think to have a representative idea of the Laotian reality you must travel
also in the coutryside outside Luang Prabang.
It's so funny spent the day looking at the laotian life of the town: orange wrapped monk walking with
their umbrella, the young girls driving the mopeds with the umbrella to cover from the sun
and to keep their skin as white as possible or kids dancing in the school gardens
following the rithm of the typical wooden xilophon.
These are my memories of Luang Prabang.
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