David, with his characteristic efficiency, has easily and cheaply booked us two train tickets on the brand-new Lao-China railway line. This means our trip north to Luang Prabang will take just an hour, as opposed to nearly six in a winding van as we go into the mountains - well worth the very slight extra cost!
At 8:30am, we get picked up by a passenger truck to transfer us to the train station. It’s already almost full with five other travellers from Nana hostel - and amongst them are Elise and Joe, one of the couples whom we spent a day with in the Cameron Highlands! It’s really lovely to see them again and we spend the trip to the station excitedly catching up. In the last six weeks, they’ve hopped around quite a bit, going to India, Vietnam and Laos while we’ve just covered Thailand. They’re now heading back to Luang Prabang for their onwards flight to Chiang Mai, and we have plenty of recommendations and stories to swap around.
All of us are on the same train and it’s nice to be in a more experienced group as we approach the imposing station. The Chinese influence (and funding) is obvious in the red pagoda roof and bilingual Lao-Chinese signs. Luckily, they’ve still tucked English translations here and there for us falangs. There’s a full security check before boarding, but although we’ve heard stories of scissors and sprays being confiscated, we’re apparently coming through during the chill shift and we don’t even need to open our bags. Inside, in a welcome change from previous experiences, there’s a trilingual information panel with regular updates on all upcoming trains, and we follow Elise and Joe’s lead and relax until the train gets here.
We’re on the slow train, so it’s an old engine and carriages rather than the shiny white, blue and red pictures we’ve seen online but it still makes very good time with only a couple of stops along the way. The route would be strikingly beautiful if it was above ground, but unfortunately the railway is going on the most direct path with almost 90% of the journey in tunnels. We do get a few gorgeous glimpses of karst outcrops rising from rice paddies, but too swift to photograph. It’s nice to arrive less than an hour later however for a journey that used to take a whole day!
We’ve been split up from the group for the ride but we all gather again before exiting through an equally grand station - we plan to use collective bargaining power to get a deal on the tuktuk to town. With seven of us, it’s an easy sell, and we get a driver for 20,000LAK each - less than a pound for a twenty kilometres journey. Our friends had a heavy night yesterday and everyone’s hankering for food, so we alight at a brunch place recommended by Elise, whI have does fancy rainbow bowls - nice to get a bit of vegetables in. It’s been lovely to catch up but we all have different programmes now, so after a pleasant meal everyone splits up and we set out towards our hotel.
We’ve somehow booked ourselves into a corner as our lodgings are right at the end of Luang Prabang’s peninsula - it’s bang in the historic centre but means that we’ve got a good twenty minutes walk to to « town », and from where we lunched, closer to half an hour. We enjoy stretching our legs however and it’s quite a scenic route along the river, with bearable temperatures. Once the bags dropped off, it’s time to explore!
Ollie’s got a big work deadline coming up so we are starting our visit with a lighter programme. This afternoon, by the time we start out it’s already 3pm and a lot of things close at four or five so we just pick one: the Heuanchan House, a pre-colonial Laotian mansion restored and set up as a museum. It’s a small wooden bungalow on stilts: main rooms upstairs and workshop / resting areas under the house, in the shade. It’s dead quiet when we get there and we can walk around at our leisure, perusing the few explanatory signs giving more insight into the functions of the rooms. It’s quite incredible to think these few rooms once housed a family of 30+ - and that was how the aristocracy lived! Despite the absence of any mechanical cooling, it’s not hot in the house at all which is quite impressive.
After this quick visit, we head back through one of the main streets. The historic centre of Luang Prabang is very beautiful: low-rise, pretty wooden buildings line the streets, charming cafes and crafts shops lure you in with bright fabrics and cushions, gardens overspill on the pavements and temples and monasteries everywhere add a regal background with their ornate red and gold pagodas. The french influence is obvious in the number of bakeries and pastries shop, and we are spoiled for choice for tea, after nipping into a few of the neighbouring temple complexes - they are many to choose from!
Our hotel is one of those pretty wooden houses, built in the traditional style right on the promenade, with lovely views of the river. Ollie gets a nice set-up on our waterfront balconies for his calls and work, although the internet is very unreliable - always a risk when travelling. In between meetings, we catch a quick bite at a local cafe serving a small list of Laotian dishes for about one pound each - the food is nice and as we’ll find out later, safe (Ollie volunteers to stuff his face with lettuce to assess the hygiene standards). But the most special thing about it is the owner’s incredible smile - she makes you feel happier just by looking at you. Just five minutes from our hotel, it becomes an instant favourite for the rest of our stay!
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