Luang Prabang - Laos’ royal city & foremost tourist showpiece: The mixture of gleaming temple roofs, crumbling French provincial architecture & multiethnic inhabitants captivates even the most jaded travelers. Located 425 kms north of Vientiane, Luang Prabang is encircled by mountains & strikingly set 700m above sea level on a narrow peninsula formed by the Mekong River on the north side, & a Mekong tributary on the SE side.
Sealed highways linking Luang Prabang with Thailand & China have turned the city into an important relay point for commerce between the three countries. Wisely, the city built a highway bypass system that gives the historic city center a wide berth. Moreover, because the city is a UNESCO heritage site, buses & trucks are also banned from the historic center. Most travel around city center is by bicycle, motorcycle, or on foot, therefore the sense of calm antiquity that first brought visitors to the city when Laos opened to tourism in 1989 has been well preserved. Although the city teems with travelers, it is not a party destination. The 11.30pm curfew silences the city by midnight & it has therefore been able to maintain its traditional disposition.
History: Early Thai-Lao city-states established themselves in the high river valleys along the Mekong River & its major tributaries sometime between the 8th & 13th centuries. Prior to that period, Luang Prabang was known as Muang Sawa. The Khmer-supported conqueror Fa Ngum consolidated the first Lao kingdom, Lan Xang Hom Khao (Million Elephants, White Parasol) here in 1353. Four years later the name was changed to Xiang Dong Xiang Thong (City of Gold), & under Fa Ngum’s son, King Samsenthai, the kingdom flourished. In 1512 his successor, King Visoun, accepted a celebrated Buddha image – the Pha Bang – as a gift from the Khmer monarchy, and the city-state became known as Luang (Great or Royal) Phabang (Prabang). Luang Prabang remained the capital of Lan Xang until King Phothisarat moved the administrative seat to Vientiane in 1545. Luang Prabang, however, has remained the country's main religious center.
Luang Prabang also remained the main source of monarchical power throughout the Lan Xang period. When Lan Xang broke up following the death of King Suriya Vongsa in 1694, one of Suriya’s grandsons set up an independent kingdom in Luang Prabang, which competed with kingdoms in Vientiane and Champasak. From then on, the Luang Prabang monarchy was so weak that it was forced to pay tribute at various times to the Siamese, Burmese and Vietnamese. After a destructive attack by the Black Flag wing of the Chinese Haw in 1887, the Luang Prabang kingdom chose to accept French protection, and a French commissariat was established in the royal capital.
The French allowed Laos to retain the Luang Prabang monarchy & imported Vietnamese workers to erect the brick-and-stucco offices & villas that give the city its faded colonial atmosphere. Luang Prabang quickly became a favourite post for French colonials seeking a refuge as far away from Paris as possible.
The Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia during WWII weakened France’s grip on Luang Prabang, and in 1945 Laos declared its independence from France, although France stubbornly insisted that Laos remain part of the French Union, & they did so until the 1954 Vietnamese triumph over the French at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam.
When the last Luang Prabang king, Sisavang Vong, died in 1959, his son Crown Prince Sisavang Vatthana was scheduled to ascend the throne. According to official Pathet Lao (PL) history, the 1975 revolution prevented the prince’s actual coronation, though many Lao & foreign diplomats insist he was crowned before the PL deposed him. At any rate, after two years as ‘Supreme Adviser to the President’, King (or Crown Prince?) Sisavang Vatthana & his wife were exiled to a 're-education' camp in Hua Phan Province (near Plain of Jars), where they were imprisoned & died, one by one, from lack of adequate food & medical care between 1977 & 1981. The Lao PDR government has yet to issue a full report on the royal family’s whereabouts following the Revolution.
By the late 19th century Luang Prabang was under attack by marauding Chinese Black Flag bandits who destroyed many sacred Buddha images, temples & historical documents. Under King Sisavang Vong (1904-1959) a number of restoration & beautification projects were launched, many of which are still evident today. French influenced buildings began to appear in the later 1800's, adding to the mixture of Lao, Tai-Lue, Burmese, Chinese and Tai architecture.
After the fall of the USSR & Soviet bloc governments, Laos finally reopened to tourism in 1989. By then, Luang Prabang had become a ghost of its former self due to communist state vs private control of the economy & the resulting exodus of nearly 100,000 business people, aristocrats & the intellectual elite. Over the next decade, however, as the Lao government legalised private enterprise, long-closed shops reopened & dilapidated villas were converted into hotels & guesthouses. Restaurants, handicraft shops & art galleries sprang up on practically every corner of the formerly comatose city. The placing of the city on Unesco’s World Heritage list in 1995 has played a major role in preserving & enhancing historic architecture, and in raising the city’s international profile.
Great web sites for more info & photos: http://buddhist-arts.com/category/luang-prabang-laos/
www.asiaexplorers.com/laos/luang_prabang_travel_guide.htm
http://www.molon.de/galleries/Laos/LuangPrabang/
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