Luang Prabang, Laos

LUANG PRABANG, LAOS | "ຫລວງພະບາງ — The City of Gold"

Luang Prabang is the most perfectly preserved royal city in Southeast Asia — a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers in northern Laos where the 33 Buddhist temples, the royal palace museum, and the French colonial villas of the peninsula create a townscape of such architectural coherence and spiritual atmosphere that it has been described as the most beautiful small city in Asia. The city was the capital of the Lan Xang Kingdom — the Land of a Million Elephants — from the 14th to the 18th century, and the concentration of Buddhist temple architecture from that period, the continuing vitality of the Tak Bat alms-giving ceremony at dawn, and the extraordinary mountain and river landscape that surrounds the peninsula make Luang Prabang the most complete expression of traditional Lao Buddhist civilization available to a visitor anywhere in Southeast Asia.

The colors are the specific palette of a Buddhist river city: the deep gold of the temple stupa finials catching the morning light above the city, the saffron orange of the monks' robes moving through the mist at 5:30 AM during the Tak Bat ceremony, the brilliant green of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers in the dry season, and the extraordinary deep amber of the sunset over the Mekong seen from the Phousi Hill viewpoint at golden hour when the city below and the river behind it turn the same warm gold as the temple gilding above.