Singapore to Luang Prabang on Silkair, and the Amantaka in Laos (pt 2 of 4)

Silkair flight MI 787 from Singapore to Luang Prabang, Laos was scheduled to leave at 9:00a. After spending some time at the Silverkris Business Class Lounge, we walked around some of the shops and down to our gate in Terminal 2. Our gate turned out to be a bus gate, where we were taken way down toward Terminal 4 where our A320 was waiting and parked next to a brand new Singapore Airlines 787-10.

This is the brand new 787-10

Silkair had ipads at each seat in business class. Those are where all of the inflight entertainment was kept.

I've never seen an Air Mauritius A330-200 before

Haven't seen an SQ A380 in a while since they don't fly to LAX anymore

The cabin itself felt very dated. The service was attentive, but the food was sort of lacking. It was similar to domestic first class food. There was a choice of 2 main entrees and a printed menu wasn't handed out. The flight attendant had one that she individually showed everyone and took their orders.

I ended up watching "The Greatest Showman" on their ipad and I only had like 10 minutes left before they disabled them. I didn't start the movie in time even though the flight was right at 3 hours. We landed in the valley where Luang Prabang is located and there's a single runway with no taxiway, so you land and then turn around on the runway to head back to the terminal. The terminal at LPQ has just 2 jetways. We parked at one of them.

Our A320 parked here in tranquil paradise

This flight continues on to Vientianne, which is the capital of Laos. So only the people staying in Luang Prabang got off of the plane. We were the first people off the plane and actually there were very few passengers staying in Luang Prabang. I think there might have been only about 15 of us. We had to get visas on arrival and the process was so slow, but we were first in line. Right after immigration there was a rep from our hotel, the Amantaka, waiting for us to help with luggage. Once the bags came out we were whisked away to a minivan where cold towels and water were waiting for us. The hotel was only about 15 minutes away and we were in town in no time. We were greeted by several hotel employees including the general manager. We were given an orientation and tour, then shown to our room which was right at the back of the hotel. It's a really long walk through all the grounds and it is so peaceful. We were upgraded to a pool suite, which was huge and had its own private pool.

Suite #14 was our home for the next 3 nights.

The Amantaka is nothing short of perfection. It's a secluded oasis amongst a quiet little UNESCO-protected town. There are tons of staff, but you rarely see them. They somehow clean your room and you never see them coming or going. They make you feel like a celebrity and I feel like I might be becoming an Aman-junkie, having stayed at a few of them now. They provided afternoon tea in their library and 2 meals per day were included in our room. We also booked a package called "Majestic Mekong," which included excursions and things every day. On our arrival day, we just went to the spa for an hour-long massage and they have private steam, sauna, and jacuzzi for guests. We had afternoon tea in the library, and had dinner in the main restaurant. You can have your meals wherever you want them actually, but I liked eating in the fresh evening air of the open-air main restaurant. This is low season for Luang Prabang, so there were only a few other guests at the property. Still being a little jetlagged, we went to bed early and slept for a really long time.

The next morning we had breakfast at the restaurant, which is a la carte, but you can order as much as you want. We had a city tour booked at 9am for half the day. Our guide met us at the hotel and the hotel tuk tuk drove us around. It was a seamless process. The guide was an independent freelance guide, who was amazing. He spoke perfect English and told us stories about his family and how his grandfather was a CIA informant during the Vietnam War. He was fascinating. It turned out that he was also Anthony Bourdain's guide when he visited Luang Prabang. Unfortunately I cannot remember his name and I wish I would've got his card. He took us to the former royal palace, temples, and all the sites.

This was taken from a temple at the top of the hill in town

That's the mighty Mekong River

We found a really neat little cafe about 2 blocks away from the hotel. The one thing that you can count on in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, is you can always find a great cafe serving wonderful pastries and coffee. The town itself is full of little ally ways and small streets. There's a night market a few blocks from the hotel and the whole street completely transforms.

The next morning we took a drive to Kuang Si Waterfalls. This is one of THE things to do/see in Luang Prabang. It's about a 45 minute drive. Our driver and van were from the hotel and he brought with us some cold water and a bag to hold our stuff if we wanted to swim. Once you arrive at the parking area, there are a bunch of stalls selling food and souvenirs. It felt very touristy. We entered the park and on the way is a bear sanctuary, which is for Asiatic Black bears. These bears in the wild are exploited for their bile, which some people in Asia think is some sort of health thing. So this sanctuary was created to save the bears from torture. 

The waterfall itself is in several pool sections. Each one gets more and more beautiful as you walk up the trail. The water is very cold and while you can swim in it, it was too cold for me. The water is really clear and there are fish in it too. The really small ones will bite your feet like those fish spas in Asia.

The great thing about going to the falls so early was that it wasn't hot yet and there weren't a lot of tourists yet too. The experience would have been totally different had there been tons of tourists. At one point we were the only people around and it was awesome. Later that evening we had a Mekong River cruise. We had this huge traditional long boat all to ourselves with local snacks and drinks. There was the driver of the boat and we had a cabin attendant to serve us. It was crazy to have all of this to ourselves. The cruise was timed with sunset which was around 6:30p. I think we left the dock around 4:45p and went slowly up stream for about an hour. We passed lots of local people doing things in the river like swimming, fishing, dancing, etc. We passed some water buffalo and some goats. Then we turned around and they cut the engines and we just drifted down stream for a long while. It was so peaceful and tranquil. Luang Prabang is in a valley so you don't really see the sun set on the horizon as it goes behind the nearby mountains, but it was still amazing.

The weather turned almost by the time we got back to the area where we left. I wouldn't really call it a dock, more like a landing. Anyway, it got really windy and cloudy and almost kind of dangerous to be near other boats. It looked like it was challenging for the driver to get the boat back to the landing since there were like 4 other boats using the same area. It was a really fun experience and I highly recommend doing this. It looked like there were lots of other boats around doing the same kind of thing, but I don't think many of them were private.

On our last morning in Luang Prabang, we woke up very early at 5:00a to do alms-giving on the street in front of the hotel. Alms-giving is a sunrise ceremony that many locals do where they give food or whatever they can to the monks who live in nearby temples. They walk around town and people give mostly rice to the monks in these basket/bowl things. We had a hotel employee explain everything and show us what to do and did the alms-giving with us. The hotel cooked sticky rice for us to hand out. So you scoop out a small handful of rice and put in their bowl. There were 3 different groups of monks, which means they came from 3 different temples. The groups come in waves and it is all over within 20 or so minutes. All of this happens in silence and it is so solemn and special. The last group will do a blessing for you if you ask and we asked our guide to ask for the blessing. They do a blessing chant and it was such an incredible experience. Afterwards we took this picture of the last group walking away. This is something I will never forget.

Stay tuned for part 3: getting to Koh Samui and the Conrad.