Time Locked

Luang Prabang, Laos - Idyllic is often the word use to describe Luang Prabang and while that is certainly true, I am again troubled with what is real and what is a thick layer of tourism topcoat. The houses of Luang Prabang whisper of its royal past and waft of its French colonization but every building's purpose is to cater to tourists. It's English speaking menu after internet cafe after tour vendors. In the evening when

the market is open, all the items sold are souvenirs.  Is it then accurate to describe Luang Prabang as an idyllic village where time stood still? Where the wearied tourist can go to see how life has been for the past hundred years?  Clearly, fifty years ago, the women of Luang Prabang were not selling t-shirts that read "Sabadee" in Lao (hello) and no local were purchasing day tours of the Plains of Jars, lunch included. 

I understand the wealth that visitors can bring to a place like Luang Prabang and to give credit where it's due, every historic town should adapt tourism in the graceful and unassuming manner that Luang Prabang has done, but I don't think its accurate to describe anywhere that I've been in Southeast Asia as a place where time stood still. A cruel oxymoron of tourism is that if you make it into the pages of the guidebooks and the travel articles, you have already lost the luster that brought you there. A more appropriate description is a town that succeeds in preserving the integrity of its identity.  Which to a traveler who's purpose is to observe, is enough.