Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang
Photo provided by www.etravelphotos.com
Luang Prabang is a city located in north central Laos, on the Mekong River about 425 km north of Vientiane. The city was formerly the capital of a kingdom of the same name. Until the communist takeover in 1975, it was the royal capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of Laos.
It was made a WHS because it is a well preserved and outstanding example of the fusion of traditional architecture and Lao urban structures with those built by the European colonial authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Year Decision Comments
1995 Inscribed Reasons for inscription

Reviews

Renee (Holland):
From Chang Khong (Northern Thailand) I travelled by slowboat over the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. The beautiful trip took two days, with a stop for the night in the dirty town of Pak Beng.

I arrived late in the afternoon, and it was quite hard to find budget accomodation. Not that there weren't any, but the lonely planet had very old entries apparently.Found a place anyway, and then walked through town.

The old colonial buildings were very pretty, but severely neglegted it seemed. Here and there houses were being renovated by UNESCO, which I thought was a good thing. Luang Prabang needs it.
At the night marked beautiful handcrafted items were being displayed, and I bought some really marvellous tapestries.

The people were all very friendly, and I heard these old men talk in French to each other; they apparently had still seen the french colonists here!

Later at night, there was a power-outage in the entire city. It occurred to me that this must be happening quite frequently, because in no time people were back out again, lighting candles everywhere, illuminating the old buildings... I never saw anything more beautiful than this. I really felt like I time-travelled back to colonial times.

The next days I went to the wats (temples) that there were to see in Luang Prabang and went to see the waterfalls close to the city. The wats were very beautifully detailed and really worth a visit. Also I climbed the only hill Luang Prabang has. It seemed easy, but with the august heat, it was in fact quite a climb! The gorgeous view from the top was well worth it though.

This is really a place you want to have seen, before mass tourism finds it. For now, the 'land of the million elephants' is a tranquil place and backpackers paradise. Go there!
 
Cem & Diana Schipper Elmacioglu (Turkey):
At the end of January 1997 Cem (Turkish) and Diana (Dutch) met during a sunset overlooking the Mekong river in Luang Prabang. Since that day we have stayed together. We got married, built our own special place in Turkey (oldbridgehouse.com) and on 15 November 2000 our lovely daughter Alexandra Beste was born. Luang Prabang has a very special meaning for us and we will never ever forget this magic place. One day we will return with our daughter (when she is old enough) to show her the roots of her existence.
 


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