Luang Prabang

Isolated in the mountains of northern Laos, Luang Prabang, a former royal capital, must be the only Asian city in which one hardly need look before crossing the street. Visitors to Luang Prabang are usually struck by the serene, tranquil nature of this idyllic Laos town. Luang Prabang is so small and compact in fact, that it's almost absurd to even call it a city. Occupying a narrow peninsula of land between the Mekong and Khan Rivers, the town is a lovely place to take a leisurely walk and soak up the peaceful atmosphere that surrounds you. No cough-inducing bus fumes, traffic jams or the unsightly presence of fast food franchises to ruin the landscape, just lots of lovely French style architecture and tons of monks.

Luang Prabang is rich not only in the cherished icons of its faith, but in tropical flora too. Her gardens are the flame trees, frangipani, and the lush forest shrubbery that engulf the ancient town in a protective leafy shroud. The shroud also finds its way, along with some 300 steps of broken stone, to the top of a steep hill known as Phousi where from its summit one can enjoy the city's total gorgeousness in one sweeping gaze. Luang Prabang is set in a tongue of land that narrowly protrudes to the confluence of two rivers - the Mekong and the Khan. Two roads run parallel along the centre of the tongue, passing a host of famous temples as they do. Meticulously tended by scores of monks in residence, the compounds seem to occupy more than half the city's land.

The city’s history is a long and chequered one. At the time of the great conqueror, King Fa Ngum (mid 14th century), the town emerged from the ranks of tiny fiefdoms to preside as capital over a united Lane Zang (land of a million elephants). Until the arrival of the French in 1893, this would be the first and only time that Lao would unite. Successive kings could not keep their formidable array of foreign foes at bay. Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam and even the marauding hoards of China, took their turns to invade, sack and occupy the town, finally forcing King Phothisarat in 1545 to move the capital to Wieng Chan (present day Vientiane). Subsequent factional squabbling saw three independent kingdoms emerge - Luang Prabang, Wieng Chan, and in the south, Champasak.

When the Thais sacked Wieng Chan in 1828, Luang Prabang once more assumed the mantle of capital that it rightfully deserved. Royalty would remain, if only nominally under French "protection", up till the Revolution in 1974. The last Monarch, King Savang Vatthana, was banished unceremoniously to a cave in northern Lao, where, along with his wife and son, he subsequently died.

The French built King Vatthana’s palace in 1904. A double cruciform structure, it is now a museum, left largely as it was in the monarch's final years. Along with the art treasures you would normally associate with an eastern king of standing, the palace houses the Pha Bang - a standing Buddha figure of solid gold. Made in Sri Lanka, the Pha Bang was given to King Fa Ngum by the Khmers in 1359 in recognition of his sovereignty over Lao. It is from this, the most venerated figure in the land, that Luang Prabang took its "modern" name. It was formerly Muang Xieng Thong.

Seeing the city's monks filing through the town seeking alms inevitably touched all those who witness this beautiful event, particularly as there are relatively few travellers to this region of Southeast Asia. All along the river you see vignettes of local life: villagers tending vegetable plots, boys sliding wildly down the river's muddy banks, and tiny heua ha pa's (paddled wooden boats) with ladies sitting primly, parasol in hand, at their bows. A stop to see the distillery at Xang Hai village is another enjoyable distraction just a short distance from Luang Prabang where travellers can observe how rice wine is made, and told how archaeological diggings near the village have uncovered wine jars that date back some two thousand years. Clearly, Xang Hai, which means, "wine jar" in Chinese, has a very long tradition of making fine rice wine.

The Xang Hai you see today is relatively new. The original village was bombed to destruction in the "Secret War" of 1964 to 1973. The villagers who lost their lives are among the tens of thousands of Lao victims of this war that no one, not even those who waged it, could ever understand.

The Secret War was yet another of so many incursions into Lao that Luang Prabang somehow managed to heroically survive - through fate or through the blessings of the Buddha; or by dint, perhaps, of the town's very splendour, that inspires too much wonderment and awe for even the most brutish of assailants to dare do it harm. The Shangrila of Lao remains basking golden in her forest garden setting. And modern day visitors to the ancient royal capital may still find themselves imbued, as so many have before, with a touch of that rare and humble sanctity that the people of this holy town so fervently and openly exude.