Laos, a river bank, had been overrun and ransacked; it was one of America's expensive practical jokes, a motiveless place where nothing was made, everything imported; a kingdom with baffling pretensions to Frenchness. What was surprising was that it existed at all, and the more I thought of it, the more it seemed like a lower form of life, like the cross-eyed planarian or squishy amoeba, the sort of creature that can't die even when it is cut to ribbons.
So wrote Paul Theroux, in his hymn to train travel, The Great Railway Bazaar, about his 1973 visit to Vientiane, today the Lao capital. He wrote at the time when American soldiers were beginning their withdrawal from the Indochinese war. Theroux wasn't impressed by what he saw.
I just returned yesterday from a week's stay in Luang Prabang -- the second largest city in Laos, and (until the Communists deposed the monarchy in 1975) its ancient royal capital. Today isn't 1973; forty-three years have since been flushed down the Mekong river. And Luang Prabang isn't Vientiane, nor is Vientiane itself still a playground for American G.I.s on leave.
Luang Prabang is now -- and probably was in 1973 as well -- a quiet, friendly, languorous small town, about 190 miles up the Mekong river from Vientiane. The town has -- as have towns everywhere -- begun to sprawl with increased population (about 50,000), but the heart of the town, the place people go to visit, is a small, walkable peninsula between the parallel Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, just before the latter flows into the former. The two rivers, about three or four blocks apart, are lined with small restaurants, hotels, hostels, and "guest houses."
This "old town" section of Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and thus preserved from "modernization" and degradation.
The city's infrastructure is built around a large number of impressive wats (temples or monasteries). Each of the town's districts is named for its presiding wat. The streets are full of saffron-garbed monks, many or most of them teenagers. But economically, the city relies on tourism, and the old town is dedicated to serving their needs (and/or desires). The monks give the town a spiritual quality; the businesses ensure that the visitor is comfortably housed, wined and dined. The two approaches to life co-exist, with no conflict that appears obvious between prayers being chanted in the wats and Beerlao being consumed at sunset in the riverfront cafés. .
But although tourism is welcomed, and many of those tourists are young people roaming the world on the cheap, the city seems to inspire a respect in most visitors. Cafés and bars close relatively early; I witnessed none of the loud partying you might find in other popular Southeast Asia vacation sites. This isn't one of the Thai islands.
I was there not to party, of course, but to hang out with family. As noted in an earlier post, my great niece and her mother have been living for a time in Luang Prabang, and a number of relatives showed up this month to visit. Also, it was my birthday, which we celebrated at L'Elephant -- a French restaurant located in a renovated and very atmospheric French villa. We enjoyed feeling like French colonists for an evening.
I had seen the major tourist attractions during earlier visits in 2007 and 2014. This year, I just enjoyed family, and absorbed with pleasure the quiet atmosphere of the city. I strolled along the streets -- often a necessity, since most of my family was staying at the other end of town, a mile from my hotel -- and enjoyed eating and drinking at a variety of riverbank cafés. My sister bought a dozen eggs at the street market, dyed them, and organized what may have been the city's only Easter egg hunt in a park adjacent to my hotel.
In a few months, no family will remain in Luang Prabang -- Maury and her mother plan to move on in May to Chiang Mai in Thailand. But I suspect I'll return for further visits to this small town on the Mekong.
On one pretext or another.
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