Mysteries of Laos – 10 Days

After breakfast, transfer to the pier and board your private longboat for the trip upriver. Stop along the way at Ban Xang Hai, a lowland Lao village where you can watch lao lao, the local rice whisky, being distilled, and if you wish, visit Muang Kham as well.

Continue to the Pak Ou Caves and climb into Tham Ting, the lower cave, filled with thousands of Buddha images left by pilgrims over the centuries. Then cross the Mekong to the village of Ban Pak Ou. On the way back downstream, stop at Ban Xang Khong, a village known for hand-woven silk and saa paper made from mulberry bark.

Head out into the countryside for a half-day tour with easy activities that bring you close to local people and nature. Visit a weaving village, then the Elephant Park Project on the Nam Khan River, where you meet the elephants and take a ride. Continue to Tad Sae Waterfall and see something of everyday life in the villages along the way.

The rest of the day is yours to relax or explore Luang Prabang at your own pace.

Rise before dawn to take part in the alms giving, as lines of saffron-robed monks walk barefoot through the quiet streets to receive offerings of sticky rice, and receive a blessing in return.

After breakfast at your hotel, visit the National Museum in the former Royal Palace, with its collection of royal treasures and gifts from around the world.

Drive out to Kuang Si, stopping on the way at Hmong and Khmu villages to learn about their way of life and how their cultures differ from that of the lowland Lao. At the falls, swim in the turquoise pools, follow the paths beside the cascades or simply relax in the shade before returning to town in the late afternoon.

After breakfast, leave Luang Prabang by car for Vang Vieng. The road winds through spectacular mountain scenery, with stops at villages along the way.

Take a walk through the dramatic karst landscape around Vang Vieng, where green rice fields sit beneath towering limestone cliffs, and explore some of the caves in the surrounding hills.

After breakfast, drive by minivan to Vientiane and check in at your hotel.

Begin your tour at Wat Sisaket, whose cloister walls are lined with thousands of miniature Buddha images, and Haw Phra Kaew, the former royal temple that once housed the famous Emerald Buddha. On the way to Pha That Luang, the great golden stupa and the most sacred monument in Laos, stop for photographs at Patuxai, Vientiane’s own Arc de Triomphe.

After breakfast, take an early flight to Pakse.

Drive up onto the Bolaven Plateau, where coffee and tea plantations cover the hills, stopping on the way at villages of the Lao Theung, the upland peoples of the south. Continue to Tad Lo, a peaceful spot beside a waterfall, for the night.

Drive back via Pakse and cross the Mekong on a local ferry to Champasak. Here you visit Wat Phu, a sacred Khmer temple climbing the slopes of a mountain, older than Angkor Wat and once on the eastern edge of the Khmer world.

Later, a scenic drive and another ferry bring you to Don Khong, one of the largest inhabited islands in the Si Phan Don area. The island is best explored by bicycle along the quiet road that circles it.

Explore the islands by boat. In the rainy season the river here can be more than 12 kilometres across, and as the water falls, countless small islands emerge, which gives the region its name.

Long before you see them, you hear the roar of the Khone Phapheng and Li Phi falls, where the whole river crashes over the rocks. Near Ban Hang Khon, look out for the rare Irrawaddy river dolphin, and see the old locomotive, railway and bridge built by the French to carry cargo around the rapids and waterfalls.

Enjoy breakfast at your hotel, then drive to Pakse.

Transfer to Pakse Airport for your flight home.