In Luang Prabander Shopping you can do in the markets or in small shops. You can not find the usual for many resort cities of shopping centers here. However, like stores selling global brands. Experienced travelers, taking into account all this, try to combine the purchase of souvenirs with sightseeing. In Luang Prabang, all conditions have been created for this: with many monasteries there are shops with souvenir products.
You can notice the greatest accumulation of small private shops on the central street of the city. Usually they are located in beautiful private houses in the old style. Among the shops selling everyday goods you can find bright antique shops. The main product of such shops are vintage figurines and artificially aged things. The price of such products depends on its age and fluctuates from 5 to 100 dollars.
In the city center you can find places where they sell handmade products and jewelry. Silver products, usually look like the creations of an inexperienced master. And even the surprisingly low price for them does not save the provisions, which you can not say about the products of artisans. Their products look colorfully and exquisitely. Perhaps they do not bear any benefit, but seeing these things, I want to buy them immediately.
In Luang Prabander there are shops specializing in the sale of coffee and tea. They work in all days except Sunday from early morning to late evening. A large selection of coffee varieties will pleasantly surprise you. In principle, it is natural, since more than 22,000 tons of fragrant coffee are produced annually in the country.
A fairly distributed goods in Luang Prabang are wood products. These are usually small copies of the deities, monks or wooden pictures with an image of animals. There are such souvenirs 0.5-2 dollars.
Such goods attract tourists with their small size, convenient for transportation. They are bought as often as magnets.
Night Market (Night Market)
Entertainment and at the same time a good place for shopping is the Night Market of Luang Prabang. He starts his work with the onset of darkness. Rather, the main street of Sisavangwong city after six o'clock in the evening begins to transform into the bazaar. Souvenirs sold at the Night Market in Luang Prabang are worthwhile penny for tourists. In addition, you can always bargain. Some products can be twice as cheaper.
In this place, T-shirts with a pattern of hand-made robots are sold as souvenirs. They are about 55,000 kips. Most often they depict monks with umbrellas. The material from which T-shirts are cheap.
In memory of the trip at the night bazaar, you can buy cute napkins with Lao ornament. Manual embroidery on them neat and high quality. There is such a souvenir of 1-3 dollars. For the same money you can buy a bright fabric cosmetic bag or a doll, cross-handed.
By the way, such dolls are sold in toy stores that work on the same street in the afternoon. Therefore, if you travel with a child, then in the daytime you can look into the shop with toys and buy a small tourist doll like. They are absolutely safe and very much resemble popular European toys for early development, only cost much cheaper (up to 10 dollars).
HMONG Market (Hmong Market)
On the same main street of the city, but only during the daytime, residents of nearby villages and the mountain tribes traded with all sorts of goods: from vegetables and fruits to their own goods made. Hmongs are not very fond of bargaining, but they relate to tourists well enough. LuangPrabangtsi skillfully use this sonorous name of the mountain people to attract tourists. Although real Hmongs selling in the bazaar is not so much. There are in the numerous goods of this market you can see the dried buffalo skin or a pretty woolen bedspread.
Market Dala
At the intersection of Setthehathirate streets and Chao Sisofochon settled the market. It is ideal for those who want to buy real authentic things handmade. Here you can look after yourself or for a gift for semi-precious stones, fabric or metal products. As in the night market, the vendors of the bazaar were traded by a local moonshine. Unandardly decorated bottles with rice strong drink and insects can be a comic presentation for friends or colleagues. It is absolutely offended to spend 25,000 kips for a bottle of strong local national drink.
From Laos strictly-setting it is forbidden to export all sorts of statues of the Buddha and its image. Also quite strictly workers in Lao customs relate to antiques. However, if you are going to leave the country not by air, then the stern customs control does not threaten you.