Luang Prabang

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The journey to Luang Prabang from Vang  Vieng is almost entirely through mountain roads with continuous hairpin turns and cliff like drops to one side and there are hardly any crash barriers! Coincidentally we saw an overturned van teetering on the edge of the roadside along the way. We could see large areas of land that had been recently burning but had thankfully been extinguished by the rain of the last few days as we had heard horror stories about the air quality around Luang Prabang. We managed to get a room in Sokdee guest house in the centre of Luang Prabang for $9 a night.

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Luang Prabang was such a change from Vang Vieng. Its such a good looking town architecturally its no surprise that it is a world heritage site. We climbed Phou Si mountain which is in the centre of Luang Prabang. From here you have a great view of the whole town, the Mekong river and you can see planes landing and taking of at the airport. It is  328 steps up though!  A cool attraction is the night market which runs from 6 in the evening to about 9 or so.  Here you can buy  traditional  Laos handicrafts. The town has plenty of 'Wats' to visit but we called into just one or 2 as we had seen so many in Cambodia. There are plenty of adventure tours operating from Luang Prabang and we booked a half day elephant trekking trip. This was very enjoyable even though the elephant handler didnt seem to have much control over the elephant. We also got to visit a traditional Lao village along the way.

Luang Prabang was such a change from Vang Vieng