We arrived in the middle of January and I'm not sure if it was unseasonably cold or not, but I was freezing! (and I'm from Seattle!) Our room was upstairs with a lovely balcony with a view of the river, comfortable bed with a thick comforter (thank god!). During the day the temperature was fine, even warm, but at night it was cold...and no heat in your room. We arrived late so had dinner at the hotel the first night, the meal was good (but the best part was the little charcoal burner under the table to keep you warm), all the tables for dining are outside, so even breakfast was chilly, the waiters actually had gloves on the next morning! The bathroom was nice, but without heat I could see my breath in the morning, more hot water and pressure would have been nice. I understand that most of the year it is very warm in Luang Prabang....but if you're there in January bring warm clothes.

We loved Luang Prabang and would have like to have stayed longer. The night market is wonderful and there are some wonderful shops to discover. We also took the morning river boat ride to the Buddha caves and went to the waterfalls that have the elephant ride (see photos). Riding the elephant was probably one of the highlights of my whole three week trip. The falls are beautiful...there is another waterfall we didn't get to, I believe it is bigger...but no elephants.

The second night there we went to L'Elephant for dinner, fabulous! one of our best meals on the trip. In fact it was so good we went back the next night. (We were going to go to the Tamarind, but we saw the same family with their three unruly children we had already suffered through on the flight in, so we changed plans and went back to L'Elephant and were very glad we did!).

The temples in Lugang Prabang are amazing, so is the museum. Also a nice photo exhibit called "The Floating Buddha" you should see....I believe it is a permanent exhibit. We had three days in Luang Prabang and it wasn't long enough, we needed at least one more day to see everything, preferably two more.