Luang Prabang and the Mekong
Vientiane to Luang Prabang on the new railway, then four days on the river.
Wellness Retreat · 6 days · November to February
Until 2021 this journey was a ten-hour minibus over the mountains or a flight over them. The railway now covers Vientiane to Luang Prabang in under two hours, which turns a night in Vang Vieng into something you choose rather than endure. Once you are north the pace drops right off: the Mekong upstream to Pak Ou by slow boat, the waterfalls in the two hours before the day trips land, and Phou Si climbed at the end of the day from the back stairs rather than the front.
Day by day
- Day 1
Vientiane's old core
Two temples that explain the Lao-Siamese wars, and one exhibition that explains the last century.
09:00Wat Si Saket
The only temple the Siamese army left standing in 1828, with several thousand small Buddha figures set into niches down the cloister walls.
10:30Haw Phra Kaew
Built to house the Emerald Buddha that Bangkok carried off in 1779 and has never returned — the sharpest lesson in Lao and Thai history you will get anywhere.
14:00COPE Visitor Centre
Laos is the most heavily bombed country per head in history, and this is the only place that states it plainly — go before you head north, not after.
Entry is free and donations fund prosthetic limbs. Closed on public holidays.
- Day 2
That Luang and the river meadow
The national stupa in early light, then a field of concrete gods poured by one man in 1958.
08:00Pha That Luang
The national symbol, and the gilding reads properly at eight in the morning instead of flaring white at noon.
Shoulders and knees covered. The cloister shuts for an hour over the middle of the day.
10:30Buddha Park
Two hundred concrete Hindu and Buddhist figures cast by a single mystic from 1958 — entirely unofficial, and unlike anything else in the country.
Twenty-five kilometres out on the Thadeua road. The stairs inside the pumpkin sculpture are steep and unlit.
- Day 3
Vang Vieng
One karst valley, taken at its two good hours and left alone in between.
08:00Blue Lagoon and Tham Phu Kham
Before nine it is a green pool under a fig tree; by eleven it is a hundred people and a rope swing.
The cave above the lagoon needs a torch, and the climb to it is a scramble on wet limestone.
16:30Pha Ngeun viewpoint
The karst towers only make sense seen from above, and Pha Ngeun puts the whole Nam Song valley under you at sunset.
A steep 30 to 45 minute climb on limestone with fixed ropes in places — not one to begin after five.
- Day 4
Luang Prabang on foot
The finest building in Laos before the heat, the last king's house, and the hill at the end of the day.
08:00Wat Xieng Thong
The 1560 sim with its roof sweeping almost to the ground is the finest building in Laos, and the tree-of-life mosaic on the rear wall wants morning light on it.
10:00Royal Palace Museum
The last king's house left much as it stood in 1975, which is the only honest account you will find of what the Lao monarchy actually was.
No photography, no bags and no bare shoulders inside; lockers at the gate. Closed on Tuesdays.
17:00Mount Phou Si
Everyone climbs it for the sunset, but the reason to go is watching the peninsula's two rivers meet — and the back stairs skip most of the queue.
328 steps up from the Sisavangvong side. The Nam Khan stairway on the far side is quieter and reaches the same stupa.
- Day 5
Upriver
Two hours up the Mekong by slow boat, then a weaving village on the bank on the way back in.
09:00Pak Ou Caves
Four thousand retired Buddha images stacked into two cliff caves at a river mouth, and the slow boat up is as much the point as the caves are.
Two hours upstream by slow boat and about one back down. The upper cave, Tham Theung, has no lighting at all — carry a torch.
14:30Ban Xang Khong
A Tai Lue weaving and saa-paper village on the Mekong bank, close enough for a tuk-tuk and small enough that you watch people working rather than a demonstration.
- Day 6
Falls, then the last temple
Be at the waterfall for opening, then one gold-panelled veranda that everybody walks past.
08:00Kuang Si Falls
Turquoise limestone terraces 29km south, and the first two hours after opening are the only ones without a coach park's worth of people in the water.
The bear rescue centre sits just inside the entrance. Keep going past the main pool — the trail carries on to the top of the falls and almost nobody takes it.
15:00Wat Mai Suwannaphumaham
Gold-relief panels of the Vessantara Jataka run the whole width of the front veranda, and it is thirty seconds from the palace gate, so nearly everyone walks straight past it.
Questions
- How long is the Luang Prabang and the Mekong itinerary?
- The Luang Prabang and the Mekong itinerary runs 6 days and covers 14 stops across Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang.
- When is the best time to do the Luang Prabang and the Mekong itinerary?
- November to February is the best window for the Luang Prabang and the Mekong itinerary.
- What happens on day one of the Luang Prabang and the Mekong itinerary?
- Day one is vientiane's old core: Two temples that explain the Lao-Siamese wars, and one exhibition that explains the last century.
Sources
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