Romantic Laos in 9 days: two rivers, two hotels
Laos is an unusually good honeymoon country for one reason that has nothing to do with luxury. It is quiet. There is no queue for anything, the town that most people come for is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes, and by seven in the evening the loudest thing in Luang Prabang is a moped.
- Duration
- 9 days
- Pace
- Slow
- Hotel changes
- 2
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $2,385 per person
This route uses that. Four nights in one hotel, three in another, and a private boat on both rivers. No internal flights, no early starts other than the ones you choose, and three days with nothing at all in them.
Nine days, two hotel changes, and a deliberate refusal to fill the middle of any afternoon.
Who it suits: honeymoons, anniversaries and couples who would rather have two good hotels than six average ones. It suits people who read on holiday. It does not suit anyone who wants a full programme.
Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, with our Hanoi office on the ground.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Luang Prabang. Fifteen minutes from the airport. We put you in a heritage property on the peninsula or in a converted colonial house on the Nam Khan side, depending on whether you want to walk out into the town or to look at water. Both are small, both have about a dozen rooms, and both are on the short list of places in Laos that are genuinely worth their rate.
Nothing scheduled. Dinner booked, five minutes on foot.
Day 2: Luang Prabang, at the town’s pace. The alms round at first light if you want it, properly briefed the night before, watched from a distance and without a camera in anyone’s face. Then breakfast at the morning market, which is where the town shops rather than where visitors go.
A guided walk late morning through Wat Xieng Thong, the finest building in the country, and the Royal Palace Museum. Back for lunch and the afternoon free. At five, a private long-tail on the Mekong with a bottle of something cold, out past the confluence and back after the light has gone. Not the sunset boat with forty people on it, your own.
Day 3: Kuang Si, early. Out at opening to the waterfall about 20 miles (32 km) south, before anyone else is there, which is the difference between a swim and a scrum. An hour in the pools, twenty minutes at the bear rescue centre, and lunch at a village restaurant on the way back with a table on the river.
Afternoon free. A massage, the pool, or the shaded courtyards of the monasteries, which are empty in the middle of the day.
Day 4: Luang Prabang, free. Nothing scheduled at all. Our document lists what is possible: a cooking session, the weaving studio across the river, a bicycle ride out to Ban Phanom, a second visit to the museum. Most couples use it to do very little, which is the correct answer.
Day 5: North to the Nam Ou. Three and a half to four hours by private car up into the mountains to Nong Khiaw, about 87 miles (140 km) that take most of a morning because the road climbs the whole way. You arrive at a village on a green river between two vertical walls of limestone.
Three nights in a riverside lodge, where the room opens onto the water and there is nothing else to do. Afternoon on the balcony.
Day 6: The river, and a viewpoint if you want one. A private boat upstream in the morning to Muang Ngoi, a village that had no road for most of its existence, for an hour of walking and a lunch by the water. Back mid-afternoon.
For those who want the climb, Pha Daeng Peak is two hours up and genuinely steep, and the top is the photograph everybody takes home from Laos. It is entirely optional and we would not put it on a honeymoon by default.
Day 7: Nong Khiaw, empty. Nothing. Kayaks if you want them, a walk to the cave shelters where the village lived during the bombing, a hammock. This is the day people remember.
Day 8: Back to Luang Prabang. Down in the morning, the same four hours in reverse, and a last night in town. Late afternoon at the top of Mount Phousi if you can face the steps and the crowd, or better, a table on the Nam Khan and a slow dinner.
Day 9: Departure. Transfer to the airport. Flights run to Bangkok, Hanoi, Chiang Mai, Ho Chi Minh City and Siem Reap.
What is included
Eight nights in two properties chosen for the room rather than the brochure, breakfast throughout, private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on both transfer days and all site days, a licensed guide on two days only, the private Mekong sunset boat with drinks, the private Nam Ou boat to Muang Ngoi, Kuang Si and bear centre entries, one dinner reservation in Luang Prabang made on your behalf, a day-by-day document with real drive times, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Hanoi office throughout.
What we would change, and when
- Want more comfort at the second stop? Nong Khiaw accommodation is good but it is a lodge, not a hotel. If that is not what you want, we replace it with three more nights in Luang Prabang and a day trip upriver instead, and the trip is still excellent.
- Want a third place? Add two nights on the Bolaven Plateau in the south, flying via Vientiane. Cooler, greener, coffee, and almost no other visitors.
- Travelling in March or April? The northern burning haze can take the view away entirely for weeks at a time, and the view is a large part of what you are paying for at Nong Khiaw. We will tell you before you book.
- Green season? June to September is beautiful here, the river is high and fast, and the lodge balconies come into their own in a rainstorm. It is also the cheapest time to buy the best rooms in Luang Prabang.
Honest notes
There are no five-star resorts in Nong Khiaw and there is no spa. The lodges are well built, the settings are as good as anywhere in Southeast Asia, and the electricity occasionally goes off. We would rather tell you that than have you discover it.
The drive north is four hours each way and we have not found a way to shorten it. Boats no longer run the old river route up the Nam Ou because of the dams, so the road is the road. If eight hours of driving across a nine-day trip is too much, the alternative above is genuinely good.
Luang Prabang has a curfew of sorts. Most places close by around eleven. If a late night out matters to you, this is not the country.
Two of the four hotels we use in Luang Prabang have fewer than fifteen rooms and they sell out five months ahead for December and January. Tell us your dates early and we will hold something.
Built by Osnat Angerman, our Southeast and Central Asia specialist, and checked by our Hanoi office before it goes out.
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