Waking up in Laos

This morning, I woke up in Laos. It’s my 30th country. Kind of a milestone. I am happy to report that it serves quite well so far for celebrating the last 10 years of heavy traveling.

Laos in the morning has an incredibly calming, transporting quality to the light and the air. It’s like you woke up to a scene on page 65 of a Rudyard Kipling novel and at any moment, you expect a tiger to pad slowly across your veranda while you soak in the outdoor tub. (Yes, I’m staying luxe right now. It’s Hotel de Paix, if you feel the need to suddenly hate me).

I’m in the town of Luang Prabang, and I can’t actually speak for the rest of this landlocked jungle nation, but here in this town, there’s this mist that rolls in over the mountains early in the day and turns the palm trees into dark green silouettes above the temples. There’s a heavy smell of char and smoke from the local slash-and-burn practices with the rice crops, and it reminds me of summer camp and mezcal and Christmas all at once. If I stopped to think about the rampant deforestation too long, it might make me sad. But I just soaked in an outdoor tub and imagined giant tigers, so I feel pretty content. These sub-par farming practices are something that the Laotian people are going to have to work out amongst themselves, while I enjoy the carbon-footprint, soil-scourge-after-effects of the smoke with my coffee.

We arrived mid day yesterday, and the town is one of the cleanest I’ve seen in Southeast Asia. It borders on being almost Disney-esque, but manages to retain that “i’m in the middle of nowhere” vibe just enough to make it somewhere I could lose myself for a few weeks.

We grabbed a couple of mountain bikes around 4pm for the easy ride up to a temple complex called Wat Xieng Thong, which is a very important temple for this country.  On the backside of the complex, you can look down a steep staircase to the Mekong River below. We rode a bit farther down the road to the first tents of the Night Market. The Night Market sets up around dusk every day and stretches nearly a half mile down the main road of Luang Prabang, with vendors selling Hill Tribe jewelry, Beer Lao t-shirts, trinkets, baubles, etc and so on. There’s a giant staircase at the start of it, which cuts across the side of Mount Phousi, to access the temple and the 360-degree views of Luang Prabang at the top. This staircase is painted white, and it’s covered in tourists. We climbed the 350 steps to the top to watch the sunset. Apparently, everyone does this here. I know everyone does this here, because every single person here was there – cameras held up, poised and waiting for a sunset so they could snap a photo.

These super-crowded, everyone-does-it situations are not my favorite travel moments, but sometimes you just have to do these things to make your dad happy. Then you can try to wash them off in the outdoor tub later. (Note: Yes, I am playing a drinking game using coffee, seeing how often I can mention my outdoor tub. I’m currently winning – cause I’m jacked).

After the sun sank, we hiked down to the Night Market below. I was exhausted, so I went to bed early, but here are a few shots from the market and some street life in Laos.