Coffee tasting and finding Utopia in Luang Prabang, Laos
We didn't have many expectations for Luang Prabang, but when we left we were gutted we didn't spend more time there.
This post includes:
The town is full of charm and quaintness with its beautiful French-indochinese architecture with hints of modern influences. It feels like it's a place that doesn't know what to do with all the attention it gets, but doesn't care at the same time. Comparing it to other places we’ve been so far, I’d say it’s got the chill vibes of Pai mixed with a bit of Chiang Mai, but not as busy.
To get around town I'd highly recommend hiring a bicycle. It's not too busy on the roads, unlike it's neighbouring countries Thailand and Vietnam. You can easily get around in a few hours too - it's a very accessible place.
There's an abundance of cute cafes that sell great coffee and a mixture of different cuisines like Korean, Thai and obviously traditional Laos food. You could easily spend a good week here and not be bored, or feel pressured to do stuff.
Alms giving is when the monks from the temples around the area come to receive food and gifts from locals, and now a load of tourists. As more and more tourists have caught wind of this ceremony (including us) it's become an overcrowded spectacle.
We found a spot on the corner of the street as we didn't want to get involved in the ceremony because we aren't Buddhist and we don't want to just get involved to just have a picture taken with a monk (which is actually disrespectful).
Unfortunately, all the tourists we saw broke all the rules on how you should behave around the monks and it made the ceremony feel unjust and embarrassing.
The unspoken rules around the monks are:
If you do go, please respect it. Take a picture of the monks from a distance and only take one. I mean really, how many do you want to take?
There's a few nice spots around town that you can get a decent coffee from, but the one place we went back to was Saffron coffee.
Situated right on the bank of the Mekong, Saffron Coffee pride themselves on good, quality coffee from Laos. They're a 'profit-for-purpose' cafe, which means the profit goes straight back to the Laos farming families that produce the quality beans.
We wanted to try a few different coffees that were brewed from different methods so we went for the tasting menu, which was 80,000 kip. I'd recommend this if you wanted something different than your usual flat white order.
Here's what you get:
This post includes:
- How to get to Luang Prabang
- What the atmosphere was like
- Kuang Si Falls
- The Alms Giving Ceremony
- Coffee tasting
- The Utopia bar
- How much we spent
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| The beautiful Mekong River at sunset |
Atmosphere
Classed as a world heritage site in 1995, Lurang Prabang is the ancient capital of Laos.The town is full of charm and quaintness with its beautiful French-indochinese architecture with hints of modern influences. It feels like it's a place that doesn't know what to do with all the attention it gets, but doesn't care at the same time. Comparing it to other places we’ve been so far, I’d say it’s got the chill vibes of Pai mixed with a bit of Chiang Mai, but not as busy.
To get around town I'd highly recommend hiring a bicycle. It's not too busy on the roads, unlike it's neighbouring countries Thailand and Vietnam. You can easily get around in a few hours too - it's a very accessible place.
There's an abundance of cute cafes that sell great coffee and a mixture of different cuisines like Korean, Thai and obviously traditional Laos food. You could easily spend a good week here and not be bored, or feel pressured to do stuff.
Getting there
Luang Prabang isn't the easiest place to get to - much like anywhere in Laos really.
Laos doesn't have a railway so all you're left with either taking a very long bus, a quick flight (with Laos Airlines, which hasn't got the best safety record) or a scenic boat trip down the Mekong River. We took the slow boat from Huay Xi, which was by far the most scenic and enjoyable way to get here.
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| Take the slow boat down the Mekong, you won't regret it! |
Kuang Si Falls
Entrance fee: 20,000 kip
We’d seen Kuang Si Falls on many vlogs and must-do lists when visiting Lurang Prabang so we jumped right in. Literally.
You can take a tuk tuk or a mini-bus to the falls. We took a mini-bus that we booked through our hostel, which took about an 1 hour and a bit to get there. When we arrived there were stalls selling food and souvenirs, which will probably rip you off, but hey that's tourism for you!
As you enter the dense Laos forest, you're greeted by Tat Kuang Si Bear Rescue Centre, which homes poor asiatic black bears (moon bears) that have been rescued from all sorts of awful situations. The sanctuary was made in 2003 in collaboration with Laos Department of Forestry and is expanding every year to home more bears.
As you make your way through the forest, you soon hear the roar of flowing water. The first waterfall you see is rather small, but there's an area where you can swim, apparently there's 3 possible places you can take a dip in. We took the plunge and it was beautiful.
As you walk along the trail you see more waterfalls that gradually increase in size. Then emerging out of the jungle, you see the biggest waterfall in all its glory. There's a wooden bridge that allows you to see face on the magnificent natural beauty. You feel the spray of its power on your face that's actually really refreshing.
You can actually hike up to the top of the waterfall, but unfortunately we didn't have time as our mini-bus only allowed 2 hours to explore the place. If you're going to do it wear well-gripped trainers because it's really slippy up the stairs.
We’d seen Kuang Si Falls on many vlogs and must-do lists when visiting Lurang Prabang so we jumped right in. Literally.
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| It was extremely cold |
You can take a tuk tuk or a mini-bus to the falls. We took a mini-bus that we booked through our hostel, which took about an 1 hour and a bit to get there. When we arrived there were stalls selling food and souvenirs, which will probably rip you off, but hey that's tourism for you!
As you enter the dense Laos forest, you're greeted by Tat Kuang Si Bear Rescue Centre, which homes poor asiatic black bears (moon bears) that have been rescued from all sorts of awful situations. The sanctuary was made in 2003 in collaboration with Laos Department of Forestry and is expanding every year to home more bears.
As you make your way through the forest, you soon hear the roar of flowing water. The first waterfall you see is rather small, but there's an area where you can swim, apparently there's 3 possible places you can take a dip in. We took the plunge and it was beautiful.
 |
| Kuang Si Fall |
As you walk along the trail you see more waterfalls that gradually increase in size. Then emerging out of the jungle, you see the biggest waterfall in all its glory. There's a wooden bridge that allows you to see face on the magnificent natural beauty. You feel the spray of its power on your face that's actually really refreshing.
You can actually hike up to the top of the waterfall, but unfortunately we didn't have time as our mini-bus only allowed 2 hours to explore the place. If you're going to do it wear well-gripped trainers because it's really slippy up the stairs.
The Alms Giving Ceremony
Up at the crack of dawn (4.30am to be precise) we made our way to the town centre to witness Alms giving.Alms giving is when the monks from the temples around the area come to receive food and gifts from locals, and now a load of tourists. As more and more tourists have caught wind of this ceremony (including us) it's become an overcrowded spectacle.
We found a spot on the corner of the street as we didn't want to get involved in the ceremony because we aren't Buddhist and we don't want to just get involved to just have a picture taken with a monk (which is actually disrespectful).
Unfortunately, all the tourists we saw broke all the rules on how you should behave around the monks and it made the ceremony feel unjust and embarrassing.
The unspoken rules around the monks are:
- cover your shoulders, chest and legs in adequate clothing
- remain at a suitable distance from the monks
- do not interrupt the procession of the monks
If you do go, please respect it. Take a picture of the monks from a distance and only take one. I mean really, how many do you want to take?
Coffee tasting
Coffee tasting: 80,000 kip
Situated right on the bank of the Mekong, Saffron Coffee pride themselves on good, quality coffee from Laos. They're a 'profit-for-purpose' cafe, which means the profit goes straight back to the Laos farming families that produce the quality beans.
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| The best view of the Mekong River whilst sipping on ice coffee |
We wanted to try a few different coffees that were brewed from different methods so we went for the tasting menu, which was 80,000 kip. I'd recommend this if you wanted something different than your usual flat white order.
Here's what you get:
AA Coffee, brew method: Espresso
They used dark roasted large beans, that make about 15% of the coffee harvest in Laos. It was really strong and smooth to taste. |
| AA coffee, espresso |
Peaberry, brew method: Aeropress
Peaberry beans is used as a light roast as it only has one bean instead of two. This mean the one bean gets the full attention from the coffee tree's nurture. This results in a sweet flavour, and the method of aeropress means you get the full flavor, which was lovely and my favourite by far.
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| Peaberry, aeropress |
Cascara, brew method: cold immersion
Cascara is a dried coffee cherry, the fruit layer around the outside of the coffee bean. It's brewed similar to tea, but in this one they used a cold brew method for 4 hours, then combined the cascara with ginger syrup and sweetened it to complete the flavours. It had a floral, melon flavor that was really nice.
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| Cascara, cold immersion |
Cakes
You also get a two cakes with it and some soda water to cleanse your palette.
You also get a two cakes with it and some soda water to cleanse your palette.
Utopia
If you're looking for a place to: chill, eat, do yoga at sunrise, play foosball and watch movies - then you don't have to go to several places, you just need to go to Utopia.
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| Got there too late for the best seats - damn! |
This place was basically our second home, it really is a backpackers' heaven. You can get cheap drinks and reasonably cheap food, but it's quality. I'd especially recommend the cauliflower honey glazed fritters, oh my, they were so good!
The interior oozes chill with large decking areas with cushions and blankets. It expands out to a large area that overlooks the mighty Mekong River. It has a lot of charm with overhanging lanterns and candles that light up every table in the evening.
Yoga at Utopia
One session: 40,000 kip
Yoga at Utopia is every morning in the week from 7.30 till 8.30am.
They have vinyasa flow throughout the week days and a Sunday yoga session which I think is a bit lighter. Check the timetable though as they release a new one each week.
You'll probably want to get there early if you want to get front row with the teacher and get the best views of the Mekong river. Also, wear plenty of insect spray because the mozzies are rife that time of morning - I learnt the hard way.
How much we spent
We only spent 4 days in Luang Prabang, but as I said you could easily spend a good week here and not break the bank too much.
We stayed at a really good, cheap hostel called Chill Riverside Hostel that overlooked the Mekong River. We got a free breakfast which saved us some dollar (get the banana pancake - it's massive and delicious) and a good deal on our trip to Kuang Si Falls.
Over the course of the 4 days, we spent:
- £37 on accommodation (2 beds in a 4 girl dorm at Chill Riverside Hostel)
- £109 on food and drinks (most of this was spent in Utopia)
- £10.69 on trips (minibus to Kuang Si Falls and admission)
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Taking the slow boat seems like such a fun and authentic experience. I took the river boat from Puerto Vallarta to Manaus in Brazil and it was one of the most memorable things I have ever done!
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