Why Luang Prabang Is The Perfect South East Asian Retreats?

This may sound like mystical hyperbole, but it's true. Luang Prabang has had this effect on people, visitors and townsfolk alike for ages. Still, despite Luang Prabang's growth as a destination for the off-the-beaten-path traveller, it remains a magical and fabled place. And like the surrounding meandering rivers, the soul of the city will be revealed only at its own pace, a speed as calming as a drifting longboat. A genuinely beautiful town set on the banks of the Mekong River, Luang Prabang is a blend of traditional roots and French colonial influences, with its golden temples and orange-robed monks, alongside whitewashed buildings and cafes emitting the scent of coffee and fresh bread.

Laos is a small country but full of hidden treasures, and unique customs. You can find a lot of minority groups living in nearly every part of the country from north to south. Most parts of the country is still undiscovered by the outside world. The impact of tourism is discussed everywhere in any Day Tour in Luang Prabang, partly because the town is so sleepy and special and though it sometimes swarms with travellers it still feels like a private, miraculous discovery, and partly because tourism is so important in a country as poor as Laos.

Most people agree that the single most powerful factor responsible for preserving the town centre's unique mix of Buddhist temples, traditional wooden houses and 1920s French colonial mansions was its UNESCO World Heritage listing in 1995.

As always there is another side to the rising tourist numbers and it is particularly evident in Luang Prabang. Tourism brings employment and income which helps local people maintain their way of life without the need to drift away to jobs in Vientiane or Thailand. It gives value, a monetary value, to the traditional aspects of a culture that would be under threat from the modern world, tourists or not. Many of Luang Prabang's traditional arts - weaving, textiles, drama, music - have all found new life, and a new market, in the town's eager tourists.

Luang Prabang may not be quite as remote or as untouched as it seemed 15 years ago, but it remains a place imbued with the atmosphere of old Indochina in a way that is difficult to find anywhere else in the region. Its unique seductive character has survived, as persistent and as powerful as the river on which it sits.

Chilled-out and friendly, Luang Prabang is one of Asia's most charming small cities. Its mix of cultural, historical and natural attractions lure growing numbers of travellers every year, yet its character remains intact. There are a lot more once you take the Day Tour Luang Prabang offering of Azooki.