Aaaahhhh Luang Prabang

I think I have discovered my 2nd favourite place in South East Asia: Luang Prabang, Laos. I have also rekindled my joy of travelling alone, reading my book over a cold drink in a terrace, or just wandering aimlessly awaiting to be surprised and lured into the hidden nookks of this sleepy, colonial town surrounded by water.

I sit tall above the sandy banks of the Mekong river while I eat Laab, my new favourite Asian food, and watch 5 young boys playing rope and falling in and out of the waters of the river. They don't know I am watching, peeking, getting a glimpse of their life and being transported back to my sleepy summers in Spain where life was slow, careless, the days were long and hot, the nights warm, the air fresh, the sound of crickets inundating the voices of the air...day and night. When the boys tire of their games and laughter, they walk up to a garden patch and steal some fruits before running off home. I sit, privy to this life, in the terrace by the riverbed, and I while away watching time go by with a cold lemongrass tea in hand. I have rented a bicycle and cycled through the small cobbled lanes, amidst trees dropping their fragrant flowers on the ground, hidden wats with golden columns, red brick roofs, white washed walls and that quiet air the monks breathe, with their saffron colored robes and their golden skins basted in the Lao sun. I see women washing the dishes in their plastic buckets on the floor, or preparing "nems" or fresh rolls in the shade of a tree overlooking the river. It is 3 in the afternoon, the sun comes down hard and the 38 degrees turn life into slow motion.

And then I stop and realise there is no noise around me....but the town is humming. The old colonial homes overlooking the dirt lanes stand tall; newly repainted, restored and looking proud, yet without pretension, over their neighbouring traditional Lao homes and guesthouses with their brick bottom and wooden top floors, pointed roof and shaded upstairs balconies. They live harmoniously, surrounded by the quietness of a town that was (and in my mind still is) the capital of Laos. People all amile at you as you go by, kids all wave and even say "hello", everyone is relaxed because really, why rush? Willing to please but never insistent, Lao peoples watch life go by and enjoy the quietness of their town of cycles, motorbike tuk tuks and the odd car. Warm, fragrant, lulling.....this is Luang Prabang.

And then, night falls, and the town comes to life with a food night market, with fresh Mekong river fish on the grill, satay pork, noodles galore, baguettes with all manner of fillings (a legacy of the French colonial times) and of course stalls and stalls of Lao Beer and freshly baked cakes. Then you happen upon the women who underneath their colourful parasols illuminated by a hanging lightbulb, sell you a world of fresh fruit; freshly cut papaya picked from the local trees, blood red watermelons, juice dripping pineapples, luscious mangoes, or the pernnial mound of Tamarinds found on every corner. The night market also brings the main road to a standstill.... it sets up on the road with stall after stall of old opium pipes, wooden carved hangers for your newly acquired silk woven fabric, women sewing under the dim light of a lightbulb the design of the bed cover displayed before you, young girls offering colourful Beer Lao t-shirts, and maybe even some local coffee bean or tea leaves to brew for breakfast. And just before midnight, we all tuck away in bed, after a well deserved cold shower and with the purr of the fan on our face. We dream and sleep until the early dawn of the next day, filled with more wandering and discovering parts of the river not explored, finding an old bookstore and sitting on their bamboo low stools to read through titles of your favourite or newly discovered authors, exchanging finished novels for new stories, or perusing the travel book section to find the hidden treasures yest to see. And then maybe, for sunset, consider climbing up to the Wat perched on the hill inside town as the ruby red sun sets over the waters of the mighty Mekong river, that has made it's journey all the way from the highlands of Tibet to this Gem of a place called Luang Prabang.