Bed and Breakfasts, and Airbnbs. They’re our preferred mode of travel because they’re affordable and you never know what you’re going to get.
Mr Peng’s establishment was bigger than our house, two storeys and idiosyncratic in its layout. Upstairs was an echoing bedroom about the size of a New Zealand country hall, high peaked ceiling, all dark timber, clothes racks around the walls, a stack of magazines. Actually two stacks, one of them a pile of China Dailies.
Downstairs was a kitchen, dining room, and second bedroom and bathroom.
The stairs were outside, which was fine — except when it rained — but quite a climb. Nevertheless, most of the time you could lounge out on the landing, read, and watch the people in the old house over the road go about their business.
We barely used the kitchen except to boil water, and left most of our gear in the downstairs bedroom.
The best thing about this place was the location. Outside our locked gate we’d turn right, and just thirty or forty paces would take us down our little alley to the main road. Turn right again and Saffron Coffee was a couple of doors along. Every morning we’d order eggs, toast and home made jam, grab our coffees, cross the road, take up position at the long benches overlooking the Mekong, and wait for our breakfasts to arrive. They’d be perfect. We’d go back during the day for more drinks, and tamarind tart, and banana bread. And lunch.
The rainy season was approaching, so we expected a few thunderstorms, and heavy rain overnight, but all they did was reduce the temperature somewhat — as well as the number of visitors, because, unlike the other places we stayed, this was tourist central.
There were restaurants and takeouts, booking agents and so on all along the busy waterfront, young people and families walking the street, boats and ferries of all descriptions moored alongside, and plenty of expat influence. To the left from our alley was a restaurant run by a Dutch photographer and his Korean wife, and we had excellent baguettes at a place called Cafe Banneton. We felt quite at home, and ate more Western food here than anywhere else. Although we did try the Korean lady next door, a training restaurant teaching the local kids to cook and serve, and “the best Khaosoi” a couple of times.
However Laos is still a one-party state, and poor. There were hammer and sickle flags everywhere, and Heather reckoned that displaying them alongside the national flag was mandatory.
I felt a louring Chinese presence — the dependence on China, the red hammer and sickles, the China Dailies in our bedroom, and that “special economic zone” to our West.
The place seemed ripe for the picking. Another stop on the Belt and Road.
In fact the impact on small business and most people’s everyday lives was probably fairly light. Our boat trip down the Mekong showed plenty of evidence that most people were still very poor, and I reckoned likely to remain so.
It wasn’t just the town that got to me, but the river — almost 5000km long, wandering south through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodias and South Vietnam, forming the border between those countries along parts of its course. In Laos the Mekong takes a massive z-slash route, East, South-West and East again, before meandering on South to its massive Delta, fought over so bitterly in the 1960s and ’70s.
We took a trip upstream to see the Pak Ou caves — with hundreds of Buddha figures, large and small — and “frequently visited by tourists”. A young family were the only other passengers on our boat, which could have carried several more, so we had the caves to ourselves.
But the river was the main attraction, calm and beautiful in that mood at least. The elegant river boats, large and small. The array of old hulks drawn up on the bank and used as squats. The jagged mountains.
So the Mekong was part of Luang Prabang’s charm, but only part of it. I imagine it like Singapore before Lee Kuan Yew made it wealthier than us. Luang Prabang was a very pleasant place to visit once you got comfortable with sweating, and we’d far rather be there than in Singapore today.
