Enchanting Luang Prabang, Laos – The Early Morning Video

Atmospheric Luang Prabang

Hi this is John Saboe, publisher of Far East Adventure Travel Magazine and breezy-size.flywheelsites.com.

Recently I traveled to Laos and stayed in the town of Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang was once the capital of the kingdom of Laos. The royal palace is still in a prominent position in the town. However it’s a museum now where the king once ruled.

Luang Prabang is an incredibly enchanting town full of French architecture when the French occupied Laos and beautiful Buddhist Wats or Temples.

There’s many adventure activities to do out of Laos. There’s so many booking offices in Luang Prabang that can set you up on a trip to an elephant camp. You can go on a trek to a hill tribe village either on a single or multi day trip. There are so many other things you can do. You can mountain bike, motorbike, kyak but I found myself just hanging around Luang Prabang because it’s got such an amazing atmosphere.

There’s lots of little restaurants, cafes and bars you can hang around in and it’s really nice in the late afternoon especially if it’s a particularly hot day or if you’re getting a bit of a shower if you’re in the rainy season.

So I found myself hanging around just because there’s such a great atmosphere in the town.

It has the largest concentration of monasteries or wats in all of Laos. There are so many monks and young monks or novices walking around the town. It’s got this really cool Buddhist monk martial law atmosphere where instead of police there’s monks walking around making sure everyone is serene and calm.

As well you won’t find any global brands or fast food chains in Luang Prabang so it truly has a unique ambience that sets it apart from most other cities in South East Asia.

Typically every morning I would wake up early, not by choice at first. I was staying across the street from one of the temples and I would hear the wake up gong for the monks at 4am so I would wake up, then drift off and then get up again around 5:30 to watch the morning alms. The ritual the monks perform every morning when they walk the streets of Luang Prabang giving the locals, and some tourists a chance to gain merit by making an offering of food. Typically sticky rice.

Afterwards I would take a walk around the town when things were still quiet.Here now is a video I put together of what I would see on a typical morning walk in Luang Prabang.

This is John Saboe thanks for watching and for more be sure to visit breezy-size.flywheelsites.com

Luang Prabang is also a Unesco World Heritage site. More at:http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/479

Monks strolling along the main street of Luang Prabang, Laos