After our somewhat mixed sightseeing experience in Hanoi on Wednesday, we left the city yesterday morning for an overnight cruise on Halong Bay. The bay is famous for its many karst rocks dotted throughout, with spectacular scenery. Getting there involved a three and a half hour drive. Surprisingly, that went pretty well with no meltdowns by anyone along the way.

We left just after breakfast and arrived around 12.30pm. After dealing with the boarding formalities, we were on our way pretty quickly. Given its popularity, there are lots of different options for touring the bay. We had booked with Bhaya Cruises, and they were excellent throughout. You can book rooms on a large boat, but we decided we wouldn’t inflict the kids on a whole boat load of strangers, so we went for the smaller option. We had originally planned on booking a 2-bedroom boat. They were booked out so we booked a 3-bed. In the end, the 3-bed wasn’t available so they actually gave us a 4-bed. Which meant the boat was massive, and all just for us. Nice!

This trip was a huge hit with the kids, and I must say we really enjoyed it too. Having the boat to just ourselves (and the crew) was a real treat. We could stretch out and make ourselves feel at home without feeling guilty about disturbing others, so we did!

Our well-appointed dining room. DW and I did our best to make a dent on the drinks cabinet!

In the afternoon, we visited one of the floating villages in the bay. Apparently the people here genuinely do live here, and these settlements long pre-date tourism. They started as permanent fishing sites in the bay. The one we visited even has its own (floating) primary school. This particular one is clearly firmly on the tourist map though – it must be weird living in a permanent exhibition:

On the way back, we took a photo of our boat:

After that we just chilled for the afternoon. It was overcast and raining slightly when we were leaving the harbour. We were really lucky as it brightened up mid afternoon. The sunset was stunning:

We had a cookery demonstration before dinner. Then the kids had dinner first. When we got The Boy to bed, the crew had set up a lovely candlelit dinner for two for just myself and DW (the girls were chilling in their bedrooms at this stage). This was our first meal together without the kids since we started this trip. And it was very nice indeed.

The following morning we woke to a misty bay. Before heading back to the harbour, we had a chance to go kayaking in and around some of the caves in the rocks. This was good fun, and thankfully no-one ended up in the water! We were all a bit tired by the time we got back to our hotel in Hanoi, but it was worth it. This was a wonderful experience.

We flew up from Siem Reap to Hanoi yesterday evening. It’s a short flight, about an hour and a half, so nice and easy. Unlike everywhere else to date, Vietnam insisted on a visa application in advance, so we had our visas already stamped in our passports by their London embassy before we left Ireland. The nice thing about that was a very speedy entry process on arrival.

Leaving the airport terminal felt a bit like being in Boston airport, or San Francisco. Remarkably so. This is not Pakse! Hanoi is big – population officially around 9 million but our guide told us it’s more like 12 million when those who haven’t officially registered as living here are included.

The other thing we noticed on arrival was a change in weather. Up to now, we’ve had mid 30s temperatures and constant sunshine. The only real change to date was a noticeable increase in humidity in Cambodia compared to Laos or Thailand. It was much more sticky and muggy there. But a big change here – it’s cloudy, and with temperatures in the low twenties, and much less humidity also.

Perfect sightseeing weather, in fact!

To get us set up for the day, we had a nice breakfast at our hotel, the Hotel de l’Opera. As the name suggests, the hotel is close to the opera house (which is a very grand building indeed), in the French quarter of the city. This part of the city is very reminiscent of Paris, with long straight tree-lined boulevards and very Parisian architecture (Hanoi was the capital of French Indochina and they certainly left a mark here). Our hotel is a very pleasant boutique city hotel, fitted inside one of these old buildings, with the floors sweeping around a lovely central atrium. Breakfast is served on the ground floor of the atrium itself:

After breakfast, we met up with our guide for the day, at the leisurely hour of 9.30am.

First stop on our city tour was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. It’s fair to say that Ho Chi Minh is still very much revered here. He was truly the father of the nation. He led the fight to gain independence from the French in the 1940s, and then the fight against the US to achieve reunification of the north and south to form modern Vietnam.

He was an old style communist in the fashion of Lenin and co, and he fashioned the nation in this image. That communist legacy is still very much in evidence (there’s a much more visible government/police/army presence everywhere here than in Laos), but the modern brand of communism seems to have embraced capitalism with gusto, so there’s a great commercial vibrancy to the city.

He had asked that he be cremated when he died. But they ignored that, and built a Soviet-style mausoleum where people could come to see his embalmed body. We took a photo outside it. We didn’t join the queue to go in. Mainly because we didn’t really want to go see him. But also, the queue went on, and on…

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…and on…(way past this corner and on around):

Afterwards, we headed to the ethnicity museum, a very interesting collection of artefacts from the 54 different ethnic groups that make up Vietnam. There is one dominant group, the Viet, who comprise 88% of the population. Most of the other 53 groups are small isolated hill tribes. The museum also contained a garden with reconstructions of the traditional houses of many of the different groups. These ranged from mud huts, to bamboo houses, to wooden houses on stilts, and various others. Exploring these was a big hit with The Boy.

After lunch, our guide took us on a walk around the old town. I had been looking forward to this – lots of narrow streets, food stalls everywhere, and generally agreeable chaos. The reality was somewhat disappointing. Unlike medieval towns in Europe, or the souk at Marrakech, this had no real charm. The girls were a bit frightened by it, because of all the mopeds zipping up and down and constantly beeping for you to get out of the way.

While strolling around, we also came across the first Irish pub we’ve seen on our trip so far. This did not help endear this part of town to us!

We travelled down from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap on Thursday, 20th March. This was a “direct” flight, although in fact it had a stop along the way at a town in southern Laos called Pakse. The airport at Pakse made Luang Prabang’s look positively cosmopolitan. Pakse’s had only parking space for two aircraft at any one time. We were on a propellor plane operated by Lao Airlines. DW took a photo of us boarding at Luang Prabang for posterity:

Cambodia has a similar UN human development index to Laos, but it seems more advanced, at least around Siem Reap. This is all the more amazing considering the annihilation of the professional classes by the Khmer Rouge in the seventies, and the fact that the ensuing civil war only ended in 1991. We had the same two-step visa entry process on arrival as in Laos, but the whole process took 15 minutes. Lots of very friendly, English speaking staff on duty in the airport. Also a much more commercial feel to the place since then.

Our hotel here is different to the two before now. The Banyan Tree in Phuket was a luxury beach resort with private villas, golf buggies etc, while the Hotel de la Paix in Luang Prabang was a boutique style hotel with oodles of charm. The Sofitel here at Siem Reap is a standard, large, corporate style hotel. Everything works, nice food, and zero character. It does though have a nice large pool area:

The staff are also amazing, and super-friendly to all of our kids.

But enough about the hotel. Everyone comes here for temples, not swimming pools! Siem Reap is close to the temples complex at Angkor. This was the seat of power of the Khmer empire from roughly 800-1400AD. We noticed on the flight in that the land around here is incredibly flat (a big contrast to the mountains of northern Laos). Extensive flat land, plus good irrigation techniques, meant an area that could generate three rice crops per year. That, plus good military leadership, created an environment that allowed the Khmer empire to flourish. At its height, the capital city here had a population of about one million. This was the largest city in the pre-industrial world – London had a population of 50,000 at this time for example.

That empire left a huge footprint in the form of various temples, palaces and monuments over a vast area around Siem Reap. The empire crumbled in the late Middle Ages. It was essentially hollowed out from inside due to religious conflict between Hindu and Buddhist factions, and became so weak from this internal strife that it was eventually carved up by its Thai and Vietnamese neighbours. Over the following centuries the whole area was re-absorbed by the surrounding jungle until it was “discovered” by the French and excavation works undertaken.

The jewel in the crown of the complex here is Angkor Wat. This was the holiest temple for the city, and indeed it remains the largest religious site on the planet. The building is synonymous with Cambodia, and is the symbol of national pride.

So naturally enough, this was the first stop for us on our first of two days of temple tours. Day one (the day after we arrived) was a cycle tour around the three main temples. DW had arranged this through a local company called Grasshoppers. The guide we had was superb throughout the day, very knowledgeable and very understanding of the need to adapt to the kids’ pace.

We were picked up from our hotel at 5.20am (yes, you read that right), and brought by van on the short journey from our hotel to the temple site. The reason for the very early start was to be there for sunrise.

This is a very popular event, every day. What we had not copped on to in advance was that the sunrise is perfectly aligned over the central tower of the temple on the spring and autumn equinoxes (if you enter from the main, western entrance, looking east). As we were there on 21st March, one day before the equinox, we would have a near-perfect sunrise, weather permitting. This was a total fluke on our part, but it did mean the site was even busier than usual.

Some low-lying cloud cover meant the sunrise was a little later than scheduled. DW joined the throngs on the central causeway approaching the temple to take a photo as the sun eventually popped over the clouds. When it did, there was a sudden rush of arms in the air as the whole crowd took photos in tandem in some weird modern twist on sun-worship:

Not all of the spectators were as enthralled at the sight:

To be fair, the site is massive, so you can find plenty of places to get that perfect photo, away from the crowds:

Afterwards, we headed to a hidden clearing in the woods for breakfast (delicious freshly made omelettes in the open air), and then we got geared up for the actual cycling (The Boy was on a child seat on the back of my bike):

We cycled back around the large moat that surrounds Angkor Wat, and then on from there to Angkor Thom, the largest site in the whole complex. Angkor Thom was the royal city within a city, and at its heart was Bayon, a temple famous for its many towers with faces on each side.

Two smiling faces:

Things One and Two each had a go at air-kissing one of them:

The Boy seemed more interested in trying to work out the engineering involved:

And indeed he had a go at trying out Khmer building techniques:

Before we left Bayon, we also took a family photo (do I look cool in my explorer gear, or what??!):

After Angkor Thom, we cycled on to our last temple for the day, Ta Prohm. This is the “temple in the jungle” of your imagination. That’s because it’s been put there by Hollywood (Indiana Jones and Lara Croft Tomb Raider were both partly shot here). Unlike the other temples, the jungle has been allowed to continue to run riot here, as the damage was so extensive. While we were there, a tour group of Buddhist monks were there at the same time, which added to the surreal feeling. Although it was funny that their must-see spot was the “Lara Croft” doorway.

By this stage, The Boy was thoroughly fed up with temples so I ended up carrying him for much of it:

He threw a complete hissy fit in the local restaurant we were brought to for lunch, so we ate as quickly as we could and headed back to the hotel pool for the afternoon.

We had another early rise the following day for our second day of temples. We were scheduled for a 6am pick-up. We actually made it to the lobby for 6.15, and when we found out that this tour did NOT include breakfast, we suggested to our guide that he wait in the lobby while we went for the hotel breakfast. We left at 7am. (Note to file: DW-arranged tours are infinitely better than Trailfinders-arranged ones!).

No cycling on this day – transport by van throughout. First stop was Banteay Srea – a temple about 30km away so well outside the main complex. This is an unusual one because it’s made from a different stone to all the others. It’s a lovely rich sandstone which weathers very well, so the quality of the carvings is still excellent.

There was a beautiful carving there of the story of the two monkeys. This tells the story of two monkey brothers who constantly fought with each other for no real reason. Eventually, one of the two hired a human to kill his brother (by bow and arrow). In exchange, he agreed to become the human’s slave forever. It’s a great parable about the futility of petty arguments and the great damage they can cause. Not a bad lesson for the kids to learn! In the photo, you can see the two brothers arguing in the centre, the human shooting his bow on the right and, on the left, one brother dying from the arrow while the other looks on.

Unfortunately, The Boy was so worn out from the previous day that he was refusing to engage with the concept of temple viewing, at all. Fortunately, there was a butterfly farm nearby (we knew this in advance), so we headed there next. A swing in a basket seat, a cool drink, and a chance to let Stick Man walk up his arm lightened the mood:

And not just for him:

The Boy has a toy rabbit that he brings to bed every night that he calls Ra-Ra. At a stall at one of the temples we bought him a rabbit keyring that he has decided is Ra-Ra’s sister. For some reason, he has named her Smacky Bottom. At the butterfly farm, he was keen for me to take a photo of her:

We visited two more temples after that. I think we were all templed out by then, and it was a bit of a blur. We did take some nice photos though 🙂

The Boy at the last temple we visited on day two, sporting an umbrella he had been given by our guide to keep up his interest level (and as shade from the sun):

Sadly, in this last temple, Eldest Girl fainted from heat, hunger and tiredness. Luckily, DW was beside her at the time and caught her as she fell. It could have been very nasty otherwise, given all the sharp stones lying all around. Thankfully, she recovered after a few minutes rest in the shade. After that, we made as quick an exit as we could and headed back to the hotel for lunch and to rest indoors for the afternoon. Although she did recover sufficiently to make it to the pool later on, for a splashabout with her sisters and little brother.

So that was the last three days. Today, we just chilled. Tomorrow, me and The Boy plan on the same. The ladies are going zip-wiring in the grounds of one of the temples. They have a 7am alarm clock. Pretty civilised for around here!

Some other things:

I mentioned that the staff here are great. I also mentioned Ra-Ra. The Boy also has another cuddly toy that he picked up in Singapore airport on the journey over here (in the toy shop we finally relented to letting him in to). This one is a monkey that we all named Cheeky but he calls Ooh-Ooh (matches Ra-Ra I suppose). The cleaners decided the two should have a cuddle when they made up the room:

I also mentioned this hotel is a large, corporate style hotel. In keeping with that, as they are in a tourist centre and as they get lots of tour groups, they have “traditional” dance shows every evening. We went on our first evening here. It was as cringe-worthy as you might expect, but if you take it with the right attitude it was pleasant enough. You could pose for photos with the dancers afterwards:

And finally, the local English language newspaper here is the Phnom Penh Post. There was an old copy from Monday sitting on a coffee table near our room so I picked it up and had a read. Three stories caught my eye. The lead story in their sports section was Ireland’s famous victory in the Six Nations tournament (given the timezone difference, I have no doubt that Liverpool’s 3-0 thrashing of United at Old Trafford would have been the lead in the Tuesday edition):

The other two stories were sadly less uplifting. The first was their front page headline:

It seems that Pol Pot’s daughter’s wedding was a useful outlet for many of his former soldiers to have a re-union. It must be very tough for this nation to heal itself when the perpetrators of such awful crimes continue to live in the community. Our guide for the second day told us in conversation that his own dad had been killed by the Khmer Rouge when he was one year old. His crime: he was a teacher.

The third story would be one close to your heart Dad:

This article covered some research by UK academics on attendance records between Cambodian primary schools with drinking water (about 60% of the total) and those without (the other 40%). Not surprisingly, attendance was much better in the former, mainly because of less sick absences. In schools with no running water, kids have no choice but to resort to pond water when thirsty. The government here has costed out what it would take to provide clean water for all schools here: about US$4 million per year, but also has said it cannot afford that so has no plans to do anything about it.

Cambodia may be more tourist-savvy than Laos, and may appear more developed, but fundamentally we are still in the third world here…

Today was our last day in Luang Prabang. Having missed out on yesterday’s events, I was keen to get one last chance to walk around the town and soak up the atmosphere. Having been on the go for the last few days, DW took the opportunity to have a rest day by the pool. The girls joined me for the walk, The Boy decided to stay with mummy and splash in the pool.

We generally just ambled around, although we did make a point of crossing over the bamboo bridge over the Nam Khan. This bridge only exists in the dry season. It gets washed away by the much higher river level in the wet season, and is then rebuilt each year.

It’s much more rural on the other side of the bridge:

When we crossed back over the bridge, we sat down on a wall for a breather. A local secondary school class happened to walk by as we were sitting there. White folk are reasonably frequent here, but white school kids are not, and twin white blond-haired school kids even less so. All four of the kids have been very popular with locals and Chinese tourists so far. Apparently touching a blond haired boy brings good luck so The Boy is especially popular, but the girls are too. So we weren’t that surprised when the local school kids asked if they could take some photos. We said fine so long as we could too! Several of them couldn’t resist rubbing Eldest Girl’s skin to see if her pale complexion was real, or make-up….

One of the (few) legacies of the French era is great bakeries and coffee shops. So further along on our stroll, we stopped in one for a floosie for me and ice-cream for the girls.

This being Luang Prabang, you can’t go too far without coming across yet another temple, so of course we had to call in to one or two more. In the one right by our hotel, we were just wandering around when one of the novice monks came across and started to speak to us in very good English. He’s from a rural community nearby, and he was interested to know where we were from and to get a chance to practice his English. His name was Noi, and he kindly agreed to us getting a photo with him.

Luang Prabang is a beautiful, magical place. Here’s a few more photos:

Yesterday was a forced rest day for me because of the food poisoning I picked up the day before. I was doubly disappointed, because it was scheduled to be a busy but interesting day. The Boy stayed with me while the ladies headed off.

First up for them was a 5am rise to witness the morning alms gathering ceremony in the town, which starts at 5.30 each day. This involves all the monks in the town’s various monasteries walking in procession through the main street to collect small food donations from those lined up along it. It takes about an hour from start to finish.

The vast majority of those giving the donations are local devout Buddhists (this daily ritual goes back a very long way), but some tourists join in also. Other tourists also turn up to observe. The locals and the monks are fine with this (the Lao folk are very friendly and open in general), provided you treat the ceremony with respect and not as a form of entertainment. The ladies decided to observe rather than participate.

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Afterwards, they dropped Eldest Girl back to the hotel as she was feeling a bit sick too (thankfully nothing too serious – she was ready for the pool again by lunchtime!). Then they went off on the other big event planned for the day: Big Brother Mouse.

This is a local charity set up to facilitate the publication and printing of child-friendly textbooks for primary schools. The state-provided textbooks are decades old, with no pictures and do not make reading fun. They are also passed from one year to the next, so you can't take them home to keep. The net result is a general culture, especially in rural areas, that reading is not important. The aim of the charity is to change that by providing kids with textbooks that engage and inspire them. This is encouraged by the authorities, as they do recognise the need but cannot afford a state financed nationwide programme, so this helps fill the gap.

DW had researched this charity before we came on the trip and we had made a donation. As part of that, they invite you to a "book party" if there happens to be one nearby when you're here. Luckily, there was one scheduled for one of our days here, in a rural school about a two hour drive away. The book party involves the charity workers giving out the books to the school.

So, Things One and Two got to go to school for a day while here! They even got to join in on one of the classes (many of the texts are in both Laos and English to also help the kids learn English). As you might imagine, they were a big novelty and very popular. Most of the kids had never seen a European before, so to see white twin kids the same age as themselves was unreal for them. Our girls really enjoyed this too.

Monday 17th was of course St Patrick’s Day. While we’re a long way from home, the girls decided to dress for the occasion, and also painted their nails:

For this day, we had arranged a boat trip on the Mekong. This involved a two-hour journey upstream on a pleasant boat called the Nava Mekong to a place of worship called the Pak Ou caves, with lunch onboard on the way back.

Not being a big fan of boats, DW was sceptical of this day. I was the one who had organised it, and was really looking forward to it. In fact, I had wanted to do a two-day cruise down the river from the Thai border, but that was vetoed (some nonsense or other about child safety) so this was the compromise.

It was great fun, and everyone enjoyed it, including DW (who remains convinced that this 4 hour trip was a much better plan).

Before we went on the boat, our guide for the day brought us to a village just outside Luang Prabang where they farm and weave silk by hand, so we got to learn firsthand how silk is produced and the various stages in the process from worm egg all the way to the final product. I was “lucky” enough to be allowed hold some of the silkworms:

Then we made our way to the boat.

Boarding and onboard:

The girls used the time on the journey to catch up on their homework:

Mekong river petrol station!

Before we got to the caves, we stopped at another village. This particular village specialises in rice whiskey and rice wine. DW declined, but I sampled the wares. Considering it was a very small village, it also had some very elaborate (if small) temples (spot the newly-acquired bottle of rice whiskey in my left hand):

The scenery all the way along was simply gorgeous:

Eventually, we made it to the caves. Locals have been bringing statues of Buddha here for centuries to wish for blessings and luck. When Laos was a kingdom, the king had to come here every Laos New Year’s Day as part of the new year rituals (although most of his duties on that front were back in Luang Prabang). One of the main new year rituals is the washing of the Buddha, where water is poured down a channel by the master monk (or in this case, the king) into a tabernacle like structure with a Buddha statue inside.

It’s a popular spot, so it gets a lot of boats calling:

Inside the caves:

While we were in the caves, two American tourists came in. One of them looked up and said “Is this it? Did we actually travel for two hours to see this?” Myself and DW looked at each other. We were both thinking – the journey IS the event, dummy!!!

We had a very pleasant lunch on the way back – a sampling of local Laos dishes, and very tasty.

Unfortunately for me, somewhere along the way I picked up a dose of food poisoning. It could have been the lunch, but it could also have been the rice wine sampled earlier on. Let’s just say that the last 24 hours have been very unpleasant. Very. Thankfully, I’m a lot better now. Luckily for everyone else, I was the only one who succumbed. One other silver lining is I’ve had some forced time out today, which has allowed me catch up on my posts for the last few days activities!

On our second day in Luang Prabang (Sunday, 16th March) we had a trip arranged through a local tour company called Tiger Trails to Elephant Village, a local elephant reserve set up to care humanely for old and sick elephants, and also to provide a tourism alternative for working elephants instead of the logging trade. We had the same guide as the day before which made life easier.

The reserve is based deep in the local countryside, about a hour’s drive outside Luang Prabang, alongside the banks of the Nam Khan river. The Nam Khan is the other main river in the area – it flows into the Mekong at Luang Prabang which is how Luang Prabang itself became a place of settlement originally.

The day started with an elephant ride through the reserve. The scenery was spectacular. All of the kids got to take a turn at being a mahout (elephant driver). Myself and DW chickened out of this opportunity.

When I said all, I did mean all of the kids:

Afterwards, we got to feed our elephants. Eldest Girl got slimed by hers:

We then got to go in a long boat on the river, first for a short journey to another part of the reserve where they were keeping a new baby elephant with her mother, and then afterwards on a longer journey to another waterfall on the Nam Khan. The long boat was cool – it’s like a long canoe with a motor attached, so you zip along very close to the water line.

On the way back, we asked our guide to stop at a local gadgets market so DW could pick up a new phone. Her iPhone had fallen off the table that morning when it was buzzing for our morning alarm call, and had smashed its screen. There isn’t anywhere in Luang Prabang to get a new screen, so she decided to get a cheapy phone until we get somewhere that you can. So she picked up a dodgy Chinese Samsung knock-off at this market. Unfortunately, she still hasn’t figured out how to change the keyboard from Laos symbols to English……

Phone calamities aside, we had a super day. We knew this day would be hugely popular with the kids, but DW and I had a great time as well.

Having had our pizza fix the night before, it was time for the real touring to begin! We had a guide booked to bring us around the town for the morning, and then out to the really pretty Kuang Si waterfalls after lunch.

The morning was spent visiting the main temples in the town. As the former capital, this was the main religious site for many centuries, and the town’s temples reflect that. It remains the religious capital. There are several monasteries in the town, so you see monks walking around everywhere in their distinctive orange robes.

Like the region as a whole, Buddhism is by far the predominant religion. As we didn’t know much about the religion (shame on me), our guide had his work cut out for him explaining the basic tenets and rituals. He did a fantastic job. The Boy hacked it pretty well at first, but eventually got templeitis so I think we ended up getting the abridged tour. It was fascinating all the same. On one part of the tour, we had to climb up 328 steps to one particular temple that overlooks the town and the surrounding region. The Boy loved that, and the views from the top were spectacular.

The Boy is either in a deep contemplation, or he’s had enough of this:

We also got our fortunes told to us by drawing sticks in one of the temples, and our guide helpfully translated the Lao text for us. Let me just say that while the fortunes were a mixed bag, all of the July birthdays in the family came out of this very well 🙂

We had lunch at a very nice restaurant overlooking the Mekong river. You’ll be glad to know this was not another pizza place, but was mainly local dishes. Yummy!

After lunch, we drove about 30 minutes out of town to the Kuang Si waterfalls. These are spectacular. Lovely aqua-marine waters in a series of pools one after the other. You can swim in them, and many people do. We noticed though that none of the locals were, nor any of the Chinese tourists. Only the western backpackers. There’s a parasite in the water that can wreck your liver if untreated. Although the treatment is straightforward and effective, we decided to give the swim a miss.

Before we headed back, we had a quick soft drink from one of the street stalls in the village beside the falls entrance, and watched the world go by:

Our travel day here went without a hitch. We arrived into a very small airport – think Kerry Farranfore. The entry process was a bit of a pain. We were sitting about halfway down the plane, but between Thing One not actually being ready to get off when it was our turn, and The Boy wanting to get back on the airplane, we ended up at the very back of the immigration queue. This was our first taste of the different pace here. Laos is a communist country, but open to tourism, so you can just turn up and get a visa on arrival. But it takes a bit of time. We had to queue once to get the actual visa, and then again to gain entry with it. Thankfully, the whole family were fairly chilled so it went smoothly enough, although it took about an hour and a half.

Our first impression of the hotel was not good. They didn’t have the aircon on so the rooms were baking. When it turned on it seemed to be pathetic. And most importantly of all, Laos is the only part of our trip with a meaningful malaria risk. But the rooms were poorly sealed so it seemed easy enough for mosquitos to get in. They did have nets over the main beds in each room, but not over the third beds we’d asked them to add. Myself and DW looked at each other and we’re seriously concerned if we’re going to be able to hack this place for one night, never mind the six we were booked in for.

But our concerns were misplaced. Within 10 minutes they had the nets sorted for the other beds. The aircon, although a bit slow to kick in, is very good. The hotel used to be the town jail until it was turned into a hotel a few years ago. It’s a small place, built around a central square which was the former prisoner exercise yard. Now it’s a really beautiful, peaceful garden. The staff are really warm and friendly, and it’s nice to wake to cocks crowing nearby. It’s really grown on us over the last few days.

After we had done our best to settle in, we decided to head into town for dinner (the hotel is a 5 minute drive outside). The local mode of group transport is the tuk-tuk (as is the case for most of the region). A tuk-tuk is basically a souped up motorbike attached to a covered trailer with benches. This was our first ever tuk-tuk:

The kids love them, and so do we. They’re cool! And cheap!

A bit of a travesty I know, but we decided to go to a pizza place for dinner. We needed some comfort food after our long day’s travel. DW and me washed ours down with the local brew, BeerLao, which is very tasty I must say.

Afterwards, we went for a stroll around the town. There’s a street market every night selling souvenirs, t-shirts and general knick-knacks, so we perused that and bought a few things.

Luang Prabang itself is stunning. It was the capital of the old kingdom of Laos for several centuries, so there are many medieval era temples. But it was also part of the French Indochina colony, so there’s beautiful colonial style architecture everywhere. The whole town was named a UNESCO world heritages site in 1995, so all of this beauty should be preserved. It’s a small enough place – about 50,000 population – so it has a lovely homely feel to it.

While it’s not exactly Benidorm, it is definitely on the tourist trail for this part of the world, so the town has a fairly touristy feel to it. There are lots of really good restaurants, English is widely spoken, and you can do a whole host of activities from here that are firmly tourist-oriented. You see a lot of western tourists, a mixture of 20-something backpackers and retirees, as well as a huge number of Chinese tourists. So while this is our first taste of the “real” South East Asia, it’s a fairly sanitized one. Although it’s still got that general chaotic feel with street stalls everywhere, dogs and cats running around all over the place, and mopeds and tuk-tuks zipping in and out between each other in near-death swoops. Despite the tourism impact, the town has preserved a beautiful charm that is captivating. I really love it.

Having breakfast at our hotel (Hotel de la Paix):

Tomorrow we head to Luang Prabang in northern Laos. That involves a six am wake-up call, two flights, and a three hour layover in Bangkok airport, before arriving at our hotel there somewhere around 7pm all going well.

We’ve had a lovely relaxing week here in Phuket.