This little town of Luang Prabang has won me over.
It’s a souvenir of a colonial past, rough edges of wartime history buffed up and ready for public presentation in a package of elegant Buddhist temples and bamboo panels of Lao buildings inlaid with French details. There are rows of white buildings with wooden shutters or doors in pale greens and pinks. Charm is sprinkled on top: the bougainvillea draped lazily just so over walls, like the flesh of an arm resting on the back of a chair, the alleys framed with vines, the lanterns in the palms.
The architecture and small-town feel of this former royal capital is certainly well-preserved. It must be, for the sake of the global prestige that brings in tourists, whose spending props up the local economy. Laos received UNESCO designation in 1995 for the precise two-ingredient formula of French colonial and Laos design.
The culture is laid-back, adding to the town’s sense of authenticity. The vendors at the night market hawk beautiful hand-embroidered Lao skirts but don’t push you to buy. There are no herds of motorbikes kicking up dust, just a few here and there. The roads are mostly empty, almost sleepy, and the streets are clean.
Some of the best food I ate was in the middle of the night market, a humble table with no English signs but a few stools and a plastic container of homemade red chili. The soup woman barely acknowledged my presence until I pointed at another customer’s bowl of khao piak. (It depends, but my tactic for good local food is to usually head for a place with no English and an attitude of complete apathy.) This little noodle stall didn’t hold back on the spice. Neither did Phamsai Houngchalem, a family restaurant at the end of the peninsula, for the Mekong river fish laab and the chunky peanut sauce for the fresh salad rolls. In both cases, my forehead, cheeks and neck was wet with sweat.
So far, Luang Prabang has avoided the gargantuan makeover projects of ancient towns in China. But the government still had to impose limits on big hotel construction in its master plan for the area, it seemed in an attempt to dam up demand, or else developers would rush helter-skelter for new projects. This has enabled the town to look as if it were frozen in time at the turn of the 20th century.
But change is fast approaching. I saw glimpses of one future scenario for Laos. Some signs indicate it could be one heavily influenced by Chinese money. Laos doesn’t have a large-scale transportation system yet for its rivers and roads, but its first railway due to open in 2021 will connect Laos to lines in Bangkok and Singapore. The $7 billion project is being built, and financed, by China, in the form of loans.
Luang Prabang is one of the stops on the new railway line. (I saw a Chinese poster for construction in the jungles outside of the main town.) When it opens, increasing easier access to the region, demand to develop new properties will grow. The government will face the challenge of whether it should adapt to changing circumstances and loosen construction limits to allow more building projects, ostensibly for large hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. If that happens, might the charm of Luang Prabang begin to fade?
