The morning ceremony is called 'tak bat', which means 'giving to the bowl'. Monks wake up before sunrise and walk in a long, silent line through the city. People kneel at the roadside and place small amounts of rice or fruit into each monk's bowl. It is a gentle, quiet moment in the city before the rest of the day begins.
Buddhist monks in Laos follow a tradition that means they do not cook or grow their own food. Instead, the community feeds them, and in return, the monks study, teach, and care for the spiritual life of the town. The monks' orange robes glow like flames in the early morning light.
Luang Prabang has 33 temples called 'wats'. Each one has steep roofs with curved tips that lift up at the corners, bright gold decorations, and gardens full of trees and flowers. The most famous is Wat Xieng Thong, whose walls are covered in sparkling glass mosaics.
The city sits on a long finger of land between two rivers, with jungle-covered mountains all around it. UNESCO (a part of the United Nations) decided in 1995 that Luang Prabang is one of the world's special places and should be looked after very carefully.