Luang Prabang, Laos: Keeping at alms length.

We left Chiang Rai early last Tuesday morning, to make our way to Laos. A minibus took us to the Thai border, where we got our exit stamps, then a short boat trip across the river marking the border between the two countries (is this river in no country?) took us into Laos immigration, where we got our visas, eventually, after much waiting and a frankly bizarre attempt by one of the officials to return to me every passport except my own (including those of some men, and one middle-aged French woman: he looked at each of the photos before asking if it was mine.) We were then deposited in the back of a truck and taken to the slowboat pier, where the chap from our tour company informed us, as he was running back to his car, that the boat was leaving two hours later than we had been told. Never mind. They do call it a slowboat, after all.

The trip down the Mekong river into Laos is spectacularly beautiful, and by far the best way of entering the country. You have two options: the speedboat, which takes six hours, or the slowboat, which takes two days. Seems like something of a no-brainer... However, the speedboats require you to wear a helmet, are endlessly noisy and have a somewhat unfortunate predilection for exploding into smithereens should they come into contact with anything solid, like, say, driftwood, or weeds. So we went with the more time-consuming, but less life-endangering option. The more sedate pace of the slowboat lets you savour the spectacular views, and despite the uncomfortable wooden benches, was well worth doing.

After a long, hot and uncomfortable journey, our expectations of Luang Prabang were high - it had to be worth it! Luckily, it was. The whole town is UNESCO World Heritage listed, and this, along with a comparatively low number of tourists, has ensured that it has retained all of its charm without selling out to the 'falang' (foreigners), like much of Thailand has. The streets are wide, well-maintained and clean, the buildings are French colonial in style and utterly charming and the whole place has a relaxed, quaint friendly feel to it. In keeping with it's colonial history, food in Luang Prabang is fantastic, our favourite being the street baguette vendors. Our hotel was also excellent. In fact, everything in Luang Prabang was. Sorry to gush, but it really is a special place.

As well as preserving (the good bits of) the town's colonial history, UNESCO and the government are keen to maintain the local Laos traditions. To this end, there is a curfew in place that requires all businesses to close by 11.30 and everyone to be home by midnight. This only adds to the fairytale-like charm of the place, though I suppose you're more likely to end up in prison than turn into a pumpkin. The curfew is designed in part to protect the traditional daily life of the devoutly Buddhist locals, where the day starts at 5.30am with alms-giving to the local monks. Women place mats at the side of the road and kneel, and hand out sticky rice to a procession of monks. It's a beautiful and sacred sight, which a wealth of information available locally asks you to observe with respect. Unfortunately, some tourists just can't help themselves. We watched in horror as one women walked up to within two feet of the monks and knelt down to take close-up photos. Some tourists even buy rice from street vendors and join in. It's sad to see a sacred tradition abused as a tourist attraction, and it seems like despite the best efforts of the authorities, there will always be some selfish Westerner who can't think of anything except getting a good photo.

As well as getting angry with tourists, we spent our time in Luang Prabang visiting the museum, a former royal palace whose most important inhabitant now is the Pha Bang - a sacred Buddha statue after which the town is named; climbing far too many steps up a far too big hill on a far too hot day to see some temples (admittedly beautiful, I'm just not much of a climber); visiting a local market, where a toddler, after some encouragement from her Dad, squirted us both in the face with a water-pistol; and getting a traditional Laos massage at the local Red Cross, which was pleasingly firm while also a good deed.

Speaking of good deeds, we also had a chance to drop into a local charity called Big Brother Mouse, an amazing organisation that works on writing and printing books for Laos children, both translations of classics like The Wizard of Oz and new stories of their own. There is a huge lack of printed books in Laos, and the few that are available tend to be either a little on the dry side or only available in English. Big Brother Mouse was started as a way of introducing Laos children to the joy of reading through interesting, well-illustrated books that would fire the imagination. We went along to a session they run for local kids to meet tourists and practice their English, and spent a really interesting couple of hours talking to teenagers who really appreciate the chance to show off their language skills, improve their pronunciation, and (in one case) mischievously ask how they might acquire an English girlfriend.