Luang Prabang is the place I recommend to people who say they are tired of travelling. It is small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes, quiet enough that the loudest sound at dawn is a temple drum, and old enough that every lane seems to lead to another monastery. The town sits on a narrow tongue of land between two rivers, its French shophouses and wooden Lao homes mixed with more than thirty working temples, and since 1995 the whole old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
These twenty routes are the walks, boat rides and day trips I return to: the temples and the alms round in town, waterfalls and weaving villages in the hills, the Pak Ou caves and the two-day slow boat on the Mekong, and further north the karst valleys of Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi. Go early, rest at midday, and let the evenings stretch.
