THE TRIP

Arrival Luang Prabang

Arrive Luang Prabang you will be picked up from the airport/bus station and transferred to your accommodation. Check out the night market and get involved in some local food!

Luang Prabang

Walk along temples on to the peninsula. The Phousi Mountain is visible from most parts of Luang Prabang and its worth to climb up the 328 steps to the top. On top is a stupa and it offers a near 360 Degrees view of Luang Prabang. The Mountain is overlooking the former Royal Palace which is now the National Museum and our next stop.

Near the top of the peninsula is Wat Xiengthong, the most famous temple in Luang Prabang, around 500 years old. It is easy to visit nearby temples such as Wat Mai as well if you like. Check out TAEC (Traditional Arts & Ethnology Center), a place rich with information about Laos and its many diverse ethnicities. Here we meet the director who will give us a tour of the museum. After, the director of the TAEC will lead a 1-hour seminar with the focus on “Ethnic diversity and cultural change in Laos”. Experience a local Baci ceremony at a local home in a small village.

Luang Prabang

Choose one of the two:

Living Land:
Would you like to see the process of planting and harvesting rice in the rice paddy? Come and spend half a day at the Living Land Farm, situated in an idyllic countryside setting surrounded by mountains in the middle of ancient rice terraces. Come and let us show you how rice is grown on our farm, experience the life of a rice farmer and try your hand at some of the activities. Or just view it all from the comfort of our traditional Lao rice house terrace. Meet some real Lao people and Rodolphe, our buffalo. Come and see how buffaloes are used to plough the rice paddies and try it for yourself! It is fun, it is an educational, hands-on and eco-friendly!

Bamboo Experience:
You will be picked up at your hotel and transfer to Bamboo Experience’s venue where you will have an interactive cooking class and ‘bamboo weaving’ exercise, learn about the importance of the ubiquitous bamboo plant to Lao culture. Would you like to see the process of Bamboo weaving and traditional Lao cooking class using bamboo shoots as the main ingredient? Spend half a day in this workshop, it’s located in a local village in Luang Prabang town.

Luang Prabang – Xayabouly

This morning you are picked up and by a shared minivan you are brought to Xayabouly, a town with a long history of Elephants. The annual Elephant Festival is celebrated here, usually in February.

At the Elephant Conservation Center, it is all about the Elephants and not the people. So please understand that the Center tries to limit the contact of humans and Elephants to a minimum as the ECC has the longtime goal to put the Elephants back into the wild. Therefore Elephant riding and bathing is not part of the program. It is more focused on observing and learning about these majestic creatures and their fate in the country that was once known as Lane Xang, the land of the Million Elephants.

Xayabouly (ECC)

On the second day you will meet up with the elephants in the forest. After spending the night grazing in the jungle it is time for another bath. Enjoy strolling together with these magnificent creatures in their natural environment.

Xayabouly – Luang Prabang

On the third day, our guide and biologist will explain the enrichment activities. Enrichment is a dynamic process for enhancing animal environments within the context of the animal’s behavioral biology. We are providing cognitive enrichment in the form of hidden food, toys, a mud bath etc. to give the elephant’s mental stimulation and avoid boredom. They love it! We invite you to take part in this amazing experience by helping our team to prepare the enclosure by cutting and hiding the food, to give the elephants a challenge.

Luang Prabang – Ban Sou Koua/Viengthong

Today you will leave Nong Khiew around 8 am for a drive to a small village near the Nam Et Phou Louey National Park. You will most likely overnight in Viengthong. The drive takes 7 to 8 hours with breaks to stretch your legs.

The small Khmu village Ban Sou Koua is the starting point for the Nam Nern Night Safari, an award winning project to support alternative livelihoods for local people and generate community support for conservation of tigers and other wildlife. The village is another 90 minutes’ drive from Viengthong.

Night Safari

Village guides and boatmen will be awaiting you to greet you and take you on a short tour of the village where you will learn about daily life and the animist tradition of appeasing the village spirits.

At around 10-11am guests embark on a 1.5-2 hour journey to the park substation and visitor camp on the Nam Nern River by long-tail boat, along the way learning about upland rice cultivation and having opportunities to spot monitor lizards (depending on the time of year) and bird life.

Night Safari – Phonsavan

Before breakfast, local guides take you on a walk around the jungle, teaching about the use of some medicinal plants and explaining the history of the site, which was once a major settlement during the Secret War. After breakfast, the boats will return back to the village.

Upon arrival in the village, you are invited to fill out a wildlife monitoring form that is used to monitor wildlife abundance and indicate the amount of bonuses put into the village development fund from the tour costs (There is no extra fee is you are so lucky to see a tiger.)

Phonsavan

After the long day you might want to start a bit later today. Or you can rise early and enjoy the sunrise on one of the Plain of Jars sites. The Plain of Jars (nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status), an impressive archaeological site where hundreds of large stone jars are littered all over the plateau and no one really knows who carved these impressive artefacts or how they got here. Xieng Khouang Province was one of the most heavily bombed places on Earth and there are many relics of these dark days. Unexploded bombs are a huge problem for the locals and especially children and farmers are endangered. Visit the Jar sites, UXO centre, MAG (Mine Advisory Group). Visit the QLA association and end with a visit to the Lone Buffalo project.

Phonsavan – Luang Prabang

If you like you can visit another site of the Plain of Jars for sunrise. After breakfast we return by minivan to Luang Prabang with a 7 hour’s drive. With the afternoon and evening spent in Luang Prabang.

Departure Luang Prabang

Today is departure day and time to say goodbye. Transfer to the airport depending on departure time. Check out time of the hotel is 12 o’clock noon.