Here and there is the occasional temple, most memorably the tiny Wat Paa Huak, which has orange walls covered with stunning murals depictingexotica such as white tigers. Looking down on the other temples is Wat Chom Si, which perches on a rocky outcrop next to the main street. Outside it, women sell birds in tiny pink-dyed bamboo birdcages; release a bird and your wish will come true. A couple of hours upriver are two more unusual temples, hidden in caves carved out of the cliffs by the Mekong millennia ago. In each are hundreds of gilded Buddhas of all different sizes, left by worshippers. Some are intricate, immaculately carved, big and grand. Others arelopsided, as small as a chess piece, or a thimble, and squiffy-eyed, as if they have availed themselves of too much of the local rice whisky. The higher of the two caves, a steep climb up 200 steps, is dark and at first seems empty. But with a torch, suddenly the Buddhas transmogrify en masse, a magical entity dazzling out of the darkness.

Back in Luang Prabang, at dawn the spiritually inclined—along with the more dedicated visitors—kneel along the length of the main street with offerings of rice for the crocodiles of passing orange-clad monks. To each you must offer a handful from your tip khao—the traditional woven bamboo pot. Next on the morning to-do list for locals is the market, which snakes along a narrow street in the centre of town. There are plenty of peculiar things for sale—squirrels, assorted rodents, crickets—but the main focus is fish and shellfish, particularly the small pinky-orange Mekong crabs, which are strung on large hoops of bamboo as if on some mermaid-gaoler's key ring. And then there are the vegetables: neat, abundant piles of morning glory and watercress, and so-called river weeds (a Mekong speciality). Everywhere you look there are mini-mountains of chillies and limes, both key ingredients in the national dish of laap, a spicy minced meat or fish salad.

The eating houses of Luang Prabang are the best in the country. Here is the place to try out a cuisine that is much-loved in neighbouring Thailand—but difficult to find elsewhere in the world. Plus, its stylish, tourist-targeted shops bear dangerous testimony to the country's French past; as well as pretty antiques there are tasteful modern 43)reworkings of old textiles and 44)objet trouvé (particularly 45)covetable are the silver tip khao).

But, this being Laos, you only need to cross the river to forget about shops and restaurants, about modernity itself. Hire a bicycle in town and 46)hitch a ride with a local boatman for a couple of dollars, and you can cycle out into the paddy fields and villages. Stop occasionally to watch the locals playing their version of 47)boules, or marvel at a tiny child atop a bicycle built for someone three times their size, or another child skillfully 48)cleaving a chicken in the yard. Glimpse a mother rocking her baby in a cradle strung between the stilts under the house, or watch a farmer and his family constantly bent, it seems, in the rice paddies. And then when you cycle back to the river bank, the boatman is waiting for you. And he is, of course, smiling.