Street photograph from the Luang Prabang, Laos morning market include dried flatted fish (left) and a woman making round coconut pancake balls (right), which I highly recommend trying.
[This post is part of my Travel Tales series. The format was inspired by the literary travel magazine Off Assignment’s Witching Hour series—” Ambient literary portraits and transportive illustrations pay homage to the singular alchemy between place and time.” It’s also a chance for me to share some of my street photography and other personal work.]
7:07 a.m. in Luang Prabang, Laos
7:07 a.m. at Luang Prabang’s morning market is the smell of charcoal and the hum of knives chopping.
It’s wintertime, and the locals are layered in parkas and sweaters. The crisp morning (60 degrees Fahrenheit) has even forced them to wear toe-socks with flip-flops.
I’m one of the few foreigners. Luang Prabang etched its name on my heart on my first visit in 2009. Somehow a decade has slipped past since I last walked these streets. I pull my camera out of my bag to document candid moments.
The vendors line the sidewalk forcing shoppers to walk in the street. A man donning a blue surgical mask attempts to navigate his motorbike through the crowd, at a snail’s pace. The stalls are a hodgepodge of colorful tarps spread across the concrete or tables nestled under blue, green and red beach-style umbrellas.
Left: A cheerful street vendor selling cabbage and other greens. Right: A colorful arrangement of chili peppers.
The fruit and vegetable vendors are busy peeling, chopping, slicing and stacking. I snap a few frames of the beautiful geometric arrangements of garlic, eggplant, limes and a brown pea-shaped fruit that I’ve never seen before. A rusted set of scales is within arm’s reach of each curated stack.
Every kind of fish available in the Mekong River—a five-minute walk away—is on display. Nearby, a lone knife and machete dealer displays his blades across a blue tarp.
Left: A vendor slicing produce while talking on the phone. Right: Detailed shot of the lone machete dealer at the market.
A woman in a black and white checked apron with red trim counts sheets of rice paper that resemble thin speckled tortillas. Rows of banana leaves are folded like bedsheets and multiple varieties of rice are on display in large circular tubs a few stalls down.
Amid the headless chicken corpses and piles of chilis is a lone croissant stall, France’s influence on its former colony. I focus my viewfinder on pork skewers stretched across a charcoal grill, bananas frying in a wok over a wood fire and a woman in a peach sweater pouring dough into a circular waffle iron. A woman walks down the street in front of me, pauses at a large metal bowl of noodles and picks one up with her fingers to taste.
A woman and her child are bundled up for the cool morning air (60 degrees Fahrenheit) with oranges and other produce spread across an orange tarp.
Vendors are squatting on stools with their knees up to their chin. I shoot a series of candid images of the interactions—a woman puts a plastic bag over her hand to grab chilis to put into another plastic bag for a customer. The payment is all cash with a constant procession of colorful bills.
Two women in matching traditional outfits—ankle-length silk skirts and long-sleeve shirts—walk in the side entrance with selfie sticks and phones in hand. Tourists. Everyone is on their phones—the vendors, shoppers and even the orange-robbed monks.
At the market’s eastern edge, a handful of clothing booths are overflowing with dark-colored pants and shirts with DIOR written in silver glitter. One is bordered by a table covered in shiny jewelry reminiscent of an arcade gumball machine prize.
Reaching the end gate, I turn and head back for another lap, anxious to shoot a few more frames.
How to Get to the Luang Prabang Morning Market
Left: A foggy sunrise view of the mountains near Luang Prabang. Right: A street vendor sells eggs on a corner near the morning market.
The Luang Prabang morning market is open daily from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. on a side street that parallels Khem Khong Road, which lines the river, and the main road Sisavangvong Road. It dead ends at the Royal Palace to the north and Kitsalat Road to the south. For more details about visiting Luang Prabang, check out my Instagram story highlight.
