The Lonely Planet calls Luang Prabang 'achingly timeless', and its gushing prose is peppered with adjectives like 'fabled' and 'nirvana-inducing'.
I was ready to be cynical.
It was the capital of the Lao empire until the 15th century, after which administrative power was moved to Vientiane, which is still 12 hours by bus to the south.
Its supremely defensive position, surrounded by jagged mountains and only accessible, even now, by a single, hair raising mountain road, was both the reason for its pre-eminence in feudal times, and the ultimate cause of its demise. However, it remained a seat of culture and learning with royal patronage, until the revolution in 1975 and was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996, since which time it has enjoyed a meteoric rennaisance in popularity.
The Mekong has idled by for a hundred thousand years. The bamboo bridge is a recent but wildly picturesque addition under which tourists tube and all river life passes.
The streets are largely dominated by 18th century villas, many sensitively converted to guest houses and shops selling local crafts. The main street is given over to a night market as dusk falls. The produce is made by artisans in local mountain villages and sold by hundreds of individual traders who keep the takings. The Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese equivalents are largely outlets for Chinese corporate trinket mega-business from which local people see little benefit.
It may even out do Hoi An in the beautiful lantern lit evening street stakes (Day 69: When the Lights Go Down).
Food, and particularly pastry making, has a strong tradition and mouth watering trays of cakes and sticky buns tempted us at every turn. We ate sticky rice and delicious river fish straight from the road side barbeque, huffing and puffing as we struggled to cool it sufficiently to swallow, too impatient to wait.
Temples play an important role, as with everywhere else in the peninsula, and the place is full of steeply pitched rooves and sumptious golden paintwork. Monks are more prolific here and the early morning alms ceremony is a visual feast as shaven headed, orange clad priests file down the narrow streets receiving symbolic donations of sticky rice and fruit from alms givers as a mark of respect.
North of the town is the Kuang Sui Water Fall that descends spectacularly down a 150 foot drop followed by a dozen picture post card cascades to the valley floor. The water is tourquoise and sweet to the taste. The banks are over grown with succulent ferns and banana trees. In the nearby Nadeuay falls we frolicked without another European in sight, with 10 over excited Lao children between the ages of 3 and 16, and their father who fished with a throwing net in the plunge pool while keeping a discrete eye on proceedings.
I approach most things on the basis that high expectations often lead to disappointment.
Whilst Lonely Planet's promises of enlightenment escaped me, I sigh with contentment as I type this description.
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