Just can't get enough of Laos? Have been to Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and even to Luang Nam Tha and Si Phan Don? Looking for a new place to try out your new Lao language skills? Sainyabouli (also spelled Xaignabouli or Sayaboury) might be the perfect destination.

While it does not have the colonial-era charm of some of its historic sisters, nor does it have particularly nice Buddhist temples, Sainyabouli has a tranquility and an authenticity that may have disappeared from those now highly touristic destinations. You don't come here for site-seeing anyway. You come here for life-watching. To be the witness of traditional Lao life and culture in a town slowly opening up to the rest of the country and to the world, taking its time in absorbing and understanding the contradictions of modernization and
development.

A small town at the feet of a great elephant

Sainyabouli, with its few tens of thousands of inhabitants, spreads gently at the bottom of majestic mountain cliffs, in a vast valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, on the banks of the quiet flows of the Nam Houng river, under the ever-watchful gaze of the great Pha Xang – the Elephant Cliff. It lies in northwestern Laos, in the province of the same name – the only province that lies completely on the western side of the Mekong river.

The town got a face-lift in the last few years: new roads, new bus station, more restaurants and better accommodations. A new road linking it to Luang Prabang along with a bridge on the Mekong should be completed by 2010. For now, a ferry gets you across the mighty river and the 3 to 4 hour-long bus drive between the two cities is a bumpy one. Buses leave Luang Prabang from the southern bus station.

From Vientiane, there are three options. Either take the 12 to 15 hour-long bus trip, or the more enjoyable, if not shorter, boat trip on the Mekong. The boat stops at the small town of Pak Lai, from were a bus can bring you to Sainyabouli in 5 to 6 hours. Finally, there is always the plane, which leaves once or twice a week from the capital city. That is, if you are not too afraid of small, old and shaky aircrafts.

What to see and do

Activities are few for the time being since the province has never forged a comprehensive plan to attract foreign visitors and tourist infrastructures are almost non-existent. A golf course is under construction thought and ancient Buddhist caves in the mountain cliffs are just waiting to be made accessible again. English-speaking personnel and Western-style food is also rare. For now, possible activities might include the following:

• Long walks or bicycle rides around the small streets and along the few rice fields still surviving in the very heart the the town;
• Drinking a (or a few) Beer Lao and eating Lao food at one of the many river-side terrace-restaurants;
• Dancing at one of its many vibrant and youthful clubs;
• Engaging the locals with a few sentences in the Lao language and letting their great sense of hospitality bring you to culturally colorful and exciting experiences.

It may not be a destination attractive to any kind of traveler, but if discovering a hidden and genuine side of real Laos is your objective, Sainyabouli, with its proximity to Luang Prabang, may be the perfect place to go. So bring your Lao phrasebook and your sense of cultural adventure and cross the Mekong to the Elephant City!