Luang Prabang With Kids: The Alms, the Mountain and the Night Market

Luang Prabang is a small town on a bend where two rivers meet, full of temples, French houses and monks in orange, and it moves at a pace that a family needs after Bangkok or Hanoi. Five nights here is the trip, and five is not too many.

The alms giving happens at dawn every day. Hundreds of monks walk in silence through the streets and the townspeople kneel with rice to put in their bowls. Watch from across the road, quietly, without a flash. Kids who are up for it never forget it. It is over by six thirty and then the market opens.

Mount Phousi is the hill in the middle of town, three hundred steps up to a temple and the view of the rivers and the mountains at sunset. Go up at five, sit on the wall, and come down as the night market sets up at the bottom.

Water, rivers, waterfalls

Kuang Si waterfall is thirty minutes out. Turquoise pools in steps down the hill, and you can swim in most of them. A bear sanctuary at the entrance for the rescued moon bears. Go in the morning and take a picnic. It is the best day out in Laos.

A boat up the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, two hours each way in a long wooden boat, with thousands of Buddha statues in the caves at the end. Or a shorter sunset boat with a drink. The rivers are the roads here.

The night market on the main street sells textiles, paper lanterns and food from stalls, and the kids get a buffet plate for a dollar. A weaving class, a bamboo bridge across the Nam Khan in dry season, an elephant sanctuary that does not do rides. Then the pool, because every hotel has one and the afternoons are hot.

Planning Laos with kids? Start with the full Laos family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.