rmalloy

This is one of the world’s greatest travel destinations. It has it all. Beautiful hotels. Great food, both Western and Lao. Gorgeous, peaceful natural setting. Interesting culture. Good temple sightseeing. Lots of opportunity for adventure. (Take a boat just across the Mekong and visit the four temples there, and a huge cave with lots of Buddhas. Kids will run up to you and be your tour guides. Trust me, you need them!) Beautiful waterfalls just a short ride out. (You HAVE to go to Guangxi and you should go to Tad Sae.) Fabulous bars. A shockingly high quality museum. (Though small, the Royal Palace has some of the most impressive Asian art I’ve ever seen, in the royal gift room. It was also fascinating to see what different countries gave as gifts. The USA gave, among other things, a momento of the Apollo moon landing with moon rocks and a Lao flag taken to the moon.) Wonderful clean massages. Oh, and all of this at extremely low prices. Luang Prabang probably won’t remain like this for much longer.

I really enjoyed my trip to Prague. Think of it as a peaceful, slow-moving big city with a huge park and an old castle a short walk across the river. The food, beer, and wine were ridiculously yummy for the prices. A super-clean hostel room cost $30. There are multiple classical music concerts every day—I saw a good orchestra play Mozart’s Requiem for about $40. One of my favorite cities in Europe so far.

Travel rating: 8/10

Berlin is a nice city. Seems like a great place to live. As a travel destination, it’s not the greatest though. Things are very spread out. Despite all the history, there’s no one very exciting thing to see. And it’s expensive. Go for a day or two to visit the historic city center and see the great architecture. Otherwise I wouldn’t hang around—I like Prague much better.

Travel rating: 5/10