Luang Prabang is the cultural capital of Laos and is stuffed full of some of the world's most beautiful temples and shrines. From the peak of Phousi Hill, the city spreads out studded with gorgeous Buddhist temples. However, there is another, lesser known, lesser travelled temple near Luang Prabang. Come with us as we explore off the well trodden paths and alleyways of the colonial Old Quarter and find a side to Luang Prabang we did not know existed.

On the other side of the Mekong River, away from the popular museums, bars and shops of Luang Prabang, is a small village and a trail that winds past beautiful temples. The end of the trail holds a secret hilltop shrine, overtaken by the trees and plants of the Laotian jungle.

This little day trip only takes a few hours and was one of our favourite things we did on this stay in Luang Prabang. If you are looking for something different to do when in Luang Prabang, then this is a great trip to take.

The idea came to us in a bar. For those who know us this should come as no surprise as most of our best (and worst) ideas tend to happen this way. The whole idea for our multi-year travel adventure had started in a bar in Vang Vieng so we have learned to trust our instincts when it comes to bar birthed plans. Sitting with a Beer Lao, watching a sunset over the river, Ellie spotted a white temple standing out against the green of a hill on the opposite bank. “We should go there!”

So we did.

The brown Mekong River flows past the viewer. In the background traditional Laotian houses sit on the riverside next to the white stone Wat Chomphet Temple in Luang Prabang, Laos. — *“We should go there!” - So many of our adventures start the same way.*

Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. We will earn a small commission from any purchases made through these links.

Crossing the Mekong - Getting Out of Luang Prabang

Our trail started in a small village on the far shore of the Mekong. To get to the village on the opposite bank we, obviously, needed to cross the river, this meant catching the local ferry. The ferry sets off from here next to where most of the tour boats and day cruises depart. This detail is important as, if you look like a tourist (as we definitely do), you will have to run the gauntlet of people offering boat trips and tours. Passing up many offers of trips and water taxis to the other side (with some frankly quite amazing price tags) we settled into a short queue of motorbikes and people waiting for the local ferry.

The blue and white public car ferry crosses over the Mekong River to the riverbanks of Luang Prabang. On board are vans, trucks, scooters and people. — *Anything and anyone can be transported across the Mekong River on Luang Prabang’s public ferry!*

The ferry is not a sophisticated affair, it has a job and it does that job efficiently and easily with no mod cons or extra comforts. The ferry is a large flat, blue barge with chain operated loading ramps on either side. On board there is lots of space for vehicles and standing pedestrians as well as a couple of wooden benches.

The ferry floated up to the concrete landing pier and the ramps crashed down. Cars, minivans, tuk-tuks, chickens and people all flowed off and we hopped on. We paid 5000 kip each (much less than the several hundred thousand being asked by the private water taxis) to the attendant, found a wooden bench right in front of the driver and took a pew.

Ferry Crossing Ticket Price

The tickets cost 5000 kip per person for pedestrians.

If you’re driving a motorbike or scooter onto the ferry, then it’s 10,000 kip.

Have the correct money on hand! Most of the negative Google Reviews of the ferry state that the attendant will just take whatever note you give them and not give any change!

The ferry only leaves when it is full so we had to wait a little while. Soon enough though, the flat barge was stuffed with people and vehicles, the chains were raised and we floated across the wide river. The whole journey only took about 5 minutes, the Mekong is quite wide at Luang Prabang but, even in the wet season, it is only a short boat ride from one bank to the other.

The ferry operates from early morning to well past sundown. At quieter times you will have to wait longer for it to fill up.

A view of the Mekong River and two Laotian slowboats viewed from the deck of the public river ferry.

Getting to Wat Chomphet - Crossing the Mekong River from Luang Prabang

Dodging the disembarking cars and bikes we left the ferry and walked up the steep slope of the river bank. The difference between the river sides is instantly obvious. Next to the “pier” on the Luang Prabang side is a high end cafe and several restaurants; on this side, nothing of the sort. Around us flowed locals returning from shopping in the city, their bikes laden with green vegetables and the occasional squawking sack. Ahead the dusty road led up to bamboo lean-to buildings, it was a world away from the UNESCO preserved colonial beauty on the other side of the river.

We wandered up from the pier to a small set of market stalls and grabbed some water. Our destination temple was on top of a hill so we knew we would have at least a little climb ahead of us. Whilst fishing around in pockets and bags for the correct change (Laos bank machines only ever give us 100,000 notes!), Ellie found an intriguing marker on Google Maps - “Jungle Shrine”.

We had learnt that the temple Ellie had spotted from the bar was named Wat Chomphet. To get to the newly found “Jungle Shrine”; there was a path past that wove past several temples, including Wat Chomphet - it looked like we had a plan!

We are not going to pretend we are some kind of intrepid explorers, we did not “discover” this area or anything, it is clear from the English language signs and directions that this is all part of the Luang Prabang Heritage area. That all being said, for the whole of this walk we only saw two other tourists! It is definitely a good way to escape the crowds in Luang Prabang.

Between the market and the pier the road forks and there is a signpost signalling the way to the various temples on this bank of the river. We took the fork that ran parallel to the river, this one path should lead us all the way through and past the temples and up to the “Jungle Shrine”.

For those uninterested in the local legends - skip past the story here!

Th legends of the Phou Thao and Phou Nang Mountains

The mountains on this bank of the Mekong have a rather . . . interesting myth associated with them. The legend goes that a poor father could no longer afford to feed his 12 daughters. In a display of frank practicality, he decided to leave his 12 lovely daughters in a clearing for the local Giant to eat (‘Father of the Year’ right there).

The Giant didn't want any skinny morsels for dinner so decided to fatten up the abandoned girls before making them into supper. The girls were fed, regained their health and blossomed into beauties.

The luckless 12 managed to escape from the Giant and found their way to the local King - King Palusen. The King promptly fell in love with their beauty and married all 12 of the lasses … because of course he did!

The Giant found out that the King was in bed with their 12-course dinner and became beside itself with jealousy and rage.

So the Giant (deep breath here): shape-changed into a gorgeous woman, seduced the King, became his favourite lover, faked a deathly illness then pretended to be a doctor and advised the King that the only cure for his (now favourite) fake-ill-giant-wife was to … wait for it … Pluck out the eyes of all of the other 12 wives and send them away to live in a cave…

Did we mention the ladies didn't have much luck?

Displaying the insight and wisdom only a King can, he obeyed the orge-wife. He blinded and sent the 12 wives away to live in a cave. However, one of the 12 ladies was pregnant and gave birth to a boy.

Now the story gets wild..

The son grew up in the cave whilst, in the palace, the Giant and the King had a daughter (we guess the Giant forgot about the 12 course girl meal?). The daughter of the Giant and son of the blinded wife met, fell in love and married. Do not think of the shared genetics (half-siblings?)

All was well until, one day, the son found a secret room in the King's palace. In the room were the 24 eyes of the luckless ladies and the heart of the Giant. The son stole the eyes and the heart and legged it.

His giantess daughter-wife pursued him with an army. She confronted her husband but he would not return with her. When her husband had left she promptly died of heartbreak and cursed him to do the same.

The son returned to his mother and 11 other ladies in the cave and gave them back their eyes - restoring their sight (optometrists hate this one trick!).

The son returned to the palace and the King's giant-wife was so enraged her disguise failed, showing everyone her true giant form. We can only speculate what the king thought of this... The Giant tried to kill the son but he stabs her in the heart (the one he stole along with the eyes), killing her.

The ladies returned to the clueless King (who had been happy to blind them…) and lived happily ever after. The son however, cursed by his wife, could not find happiness again. So he set off to look for his abandoned love. Finding her dead where he had left her, the son dies of heartbreak himself - fulfilling his dead wife’s curse.

The Gods looked down on at the son, dead at the feet of his wife, and transformed both of them into the local mountains…known as Phou Thao and Phou Nang.

Now you know!

Our walk started with us going through the local village. The houses were a mix of wood, concrete and stone and were a very long way from the ordered colonial architecture of Luang Prabang. Chickens pecked at the ground and geese honked their protest at our presence. Outside many of the houses, sheets were covered with corn, river weed or chillies all drying in the intense Laotian sun.

Corn kernals sit on plastic sacks on top of brick steps outside a traditional Laotian style house in the village of Chomphet, Luang Prabang.

The residents of the village were friendly and welcoming. Children alternately waved and laughed at us or ran away and hid.

We passed a lively, noisy school and came to the middle of the village and the first of our temples.

Wat Xieng Mene

(location)

Our first temple was Wat Xieng Mene; a gorgeous traditional white, red and gold structure in the middle of the village. The temple buildings were separated from the village by a low white wall, guarded by sharp toothed, stone dogs. Inside, the temple grounds were serene and peaceful. Golden statues, of the “7 days of the week” Buddha’s, stood, sat or reclined outside of the main temple building.

Wat Xieng Mene is an old temple, with history dating back to the 1500’s if not further. The temple gained special prominence when it was used to house the golden “Prabang” Buddha statue on its pilgrimage back to Luang Prabang (the city is named after this golden Buddha). In 1867 the Prabang statue rested at the temple for 7 days on its procession back to Luang Prabang after being held in Thailand for 40 years.

The red and gold carved pillars of Wat Xieng Mene frame a golden, carved door.

Despite its history the temple comes across as calm and humble. It feels much like a country village church does in England: it is part of the local village, not some grand thing dominating over it.

We continued up the village road until the houses started to thin out, the trees began to crowd in and the road forked off in two. The main road headed north east whilst a smaller walking path wound into the forest. Following the helpful signs we headed into the forest.

After only a minute or so we could see the staircase leading to Wat Chompet, the temple that had inspired this whole expedition. The route we were walking was linear - all the way to the “Jungle Shrine” and back again on the same path. We decided that we would walk past the steps for now and visit the hill top temple on the way back.

Temple entrance fees

As a foreigner, you need to pay an entrance fee to keep walking along this path. The fee covers you to walk the path and enter any of the temples on the way. Tickets cost only 20,000 kip per person.

Wat Long Koon

(location)

Just outside of the town was the much larger Wat Long Koon. We approached the temple down a moss covered stairway straight out of a Ghibli film. The architecture was, again, beautiful with white walls, red lintels, gold filigree and intricate carvings. Wat Long Koon is spread over several buildings with prayer halls, monastic rooms and accommodation for the monks.

Well tended lawns had cockerels pecking and colourful butterflies flitting around. The whole place is surrounded by the forest, which made the orange of the monk's robes really stand out against the deep greens of the foliage.

A cockerel walks on a grass lawn outside the white walls of Wat Long Koon in Chomphet, Luang Prabang.

Some of the temple buildings have faded paintings framing their doors. Armour clad, moustachioed warriors stood guard over the gold and lacquer entrances. These figures, with their long handled spear swords, seemed more like the ones you would expect to see in a Chinese temple. It was just another thing that made this place unique to us.

The painted exterior to Wat Long Koon Temple features images of moustachioed warriors surrounding a green and gold temple door.

Towards the river we found a large Buddha statue sitting cross legged under the many heads of a protective Naga. In the dry season this statue looks over the sandy shores of the river, which would be full of small farms and allotments growing in the fertile banks. We were visiting right at the end of the wet season and the Buddha was looking over nothing but the fast flowing waters of the Mekong.

This area seems to be where a few boat tours unload their passengers. There was another ticket booth and a small pier at the end of a staircase. When we visited we did not see any boat-borne visitors but it would make a serene and beautiful stop on any boat ride.

After Wat Long Koon the road wound on, houses became rarer and rarer and the jungle all around the air was filled with a chorus of cicadas.

A stone path winds itself into the thick jungle on the Chomphet side of Luang Prabang, Laos.

Wat Tham Sakkalin

(location)

A short walk later and we came across the painted sides of Wat Tham Sakkalin. On one side of the road is a temple building, the outside of which is entirely covered in paintings depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha. When we visited the serene atmosphere was slightly disturbed by a chainsaw wielding monk who was pruning some of the nearby trees.

The colourfully painted walls of Wat Tham Sakkalin show stories of the Buddha in Luang Prabang, Laos. In the centre is a carved wooden red and golden window.

We, although we didn't realise it at this point, had made a mistake. Wat Tham Sakkalin has a famous cave that forms the core of the temple. The limestone cave houses some fragments of the Buddha and is kept locked. If you want to visit the 100m cave you need to ask for the keys from the ticket booth near Wat Chompet! We had not done this so contented ourselves to just peer through the latticework cave gate.

A locked painted gate showing images of the Buddha marks the entrance to a cave temple at Wat Tham Sakkalin in Laos.

We wandered on, passing local families eating and listening to music on massive, old school radios. This felt like a side to Luang Prabang that we hadn't seen. Rawer and less polished, this seemed like what life in rural Laos would actually look like without the flourishes and decorations added for tourists.

Wat Had Siaw

(location)

As our goal of the “Jungle Shrine” grew closer we entered our final official Wat - Wat Had Siaw. This large temple is currently under construction but there is nothing to stop you going through and admiring the buildings. The large new prayer hall looked especially impressive. The workers were building up the ornate entrance columns when we visited but inside we could see the huge and imposing Buddha in pride of place. It had not yet received its golden paint but its huge white eyes stared back at us from the semi-constructed darkness.

The temple is also home to a large pack of very cute dogs. We had been wary approaching the temple as we could hear lots of barking (John bravely picked up a stick but it just fell apart in his hand). The dogs were fine, they were clearly fed and cared for by the temple. We walked through the pack as it sauntered towards an orange robed monk and, except for some interesting snuffling, the dogs barely registered our presence.

Out the back of Wat Had Siaw the paved path stops and the road becomes an reddy-orange mud road. We didn't have to follow this far to find our final fork in the road. On one side was a path to another temple, its gate closed and hung with a Laotion sign we couldn't translate, on the other side, a tiny track leading up a hill….

The Secret Jungle Shrine

(location)

The only indication that we were in the right place was the trail of stone white lotus’ dotted in the forest leading up the hill. The path was nearly non-existent but the little white buds showed us that we were on the right trail. The climb up the hill was short and not steep at all and, before long, we started to see the golden shapes of figures in the trees.

Golden statues of a monk and Buddha are surrounded by trees at a jungle shrine in Luang Prabang, Laos.

The Jungle Shrine is not massive or fancy. It is a collection of statues, sculptures and holy artefacts scattered across the hilltop. We cannot find any reliable information as to whether this is an abandoned temple, a store for holy objects or an overgrown shrine. What we can say for sure however, is that it is beautiful. It is just the kind of overgrown relic we love to find. We love ruins, abandoned buildings and forgotten structures and this shrine ticked all of the above. Leaf strewn Buddhas meditated next to four headed sculptures that were vanishing into the plants and mosses of the jungle. It was so different from the clean white walls of Wat Had Siaw being built below.

Two golden statues of Buddha's sitting cross legged sit on the floor of the jungle in Luang Prabang.

You can access the Jungle Shrine via another path, inside Wat Had Siaw you’ll find two statues flanking a trail into the jungle. If you follow this path, you should find the jungle shrine.

The Jungle Shrine is not a large shrine, you can walk all around it in under five minutes, it did however make a fitting return point for our jungle walk. We had walked only around 3km to get here but it was the perfect place to turn around and head back. We still had a hill to climb and a temple to see..

A four headed Buddha statue sits in the middle of the jungle floor at a forest shrine in Luang Prabang, Northern Laos.

Wat Chompet

(location)

We followed the road back the way we had come until we were, once again, stood in front of the Wat Chompet ticket shack. Behind the shack rose a steep, white stone lined staircase. We had saved the best until last, it was time to climb.

A steep stone staircase leads up to Wat Chomphet in Laos.

The climb was short but sharp and, in the late afternoon sun, very very hot! We pulled our sweat soaked selves up the last of the 123 steps and were greeted by an amazing view.

The whole of Luang Prabang was laid out in front of us. Its gold topped temples sparkling and glowing in the sun. We love the many views you can get from the top of the famous Phousi Hill (read all about that here) but this view may well be our favourite in Luang Prabang. The river just frames the city perfectly.

A view over the Mekong River and the rooftops of Luang Prabang viewed from Wat Chomphet in Laos.

The temple at Wat Chompet itself is semi abandoned, its doors locked shut and its elegant facade crumbling. Ancient stupa’s line one side whilst cracked stones and old statues speckle the front. We learned that these contain the bones from two wives of a former king. We couldn't find out much about the history of the temple online but it was apparently built in 1888 by Thailand, if you know more please let us know in the comments. We have said it before but we love ruins and this temple, whilst not technically a ruin, had all the romance we adore.

A carved, golden door lintel sits above a red door at Wat Chomphet, Luang Prabang.

This temple had been the goal of our little expedition, we had saved the best until last and had found a fantastic view of Luang Prabang. We walked back down the 123 steps, rejoined the path and headed back to the ferry.

Two stone stupas are covered in moss, ferns and green fauna at Wat Chomphet in Luang Prabang.

Final thoughts - lesser know temples and the secret shrine of Luang Prabang

We had set out just to find this temple but it had turned into a great mini-adventure. We can completely recommend getting out of Luang Prabang and having a walk on the other side of the Mekong: it is a different world!

We started out just having one temple to find but ended up exploring 4 temples and a hidden shrine, all tied together with a gorgeous, fun and easy 6km walk through villages and forests.

We had been right, we should make more decisions in bars!

Thanks for reading,

John & Ellie x

#adventuresofjellie