Luang Prabang

Laos is a country where you will not see anything Western or ultra modern. There are no McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Huts or Starbucks Coffee there. Luang Prabang is a wonderful patchwork of traditional Lao wooden houses and hints of European architecture. It is a city in north central Laos, consisting of 58 adjacent villages, of which 33 comprise the UNESCO Town Of Luang Prabang World Heritage Site.

^3/4Luang Prabang's World Heritage-endorsed old city certainly lives up to its name. Positioned at the confluence of the •mightye Mekong and the unassuming Nam Khan, the city forms a peninsula in the midst of Laosê paddy-filled landscape, where a relaxing river-view is never far away. Home to a unique marriage of French colonial and Indo-chinese architectural styles, itês easy to see why the main centre had World Heritage status. Every visitor should start one day off by giving alms to the local monks. There are so many monks in Luang Prabang - more than 1,200 live here (ten percent of the cityês population) - that sometimes the whole city can seem like a monastery. A number of colonial mansions here have been converted into hotels and restaurants. In the night Market, one can find a lovely selection of handmade textiles made by the local and hilltribe people surrounding Luang Prabang.