Saturday

5. French Effect, 8 a.m.

Besides the elegant architecture, the French also left behind a passion for excellent bread. At Le Cafe Ban Vat Sene, for example, the breakfast of café au lait, croissants with butter and jam, and orange juice transports you to a Parisian cafe, albeit one with saffron-clothed monks wandering outside. Meanwhile, the new cafe Le Banneton is also a standout for breakfast, with magazines and guidebooks to peruse as you plan your day over a cup of French roast.

6. Market to Table, 9 a.m.

One of Luang Prabang’s most authentic spots for traditional Lao dishes, the Tamarindrestaurant also offers cooking classes off site to inspire a deeper knowledge of the cuisine. The morning course (285,000 kip) starts with a trip to the town’s vibrant food market to buy local and seasonal produce, followed by a class to learn how to make dishes like mok pa, fish steamed in banana leaves, and various jeow, the traditional dipping sauce. The school’s lakeside location makes for a lovely setting for your tasty Lao lunch.

7. ­A Moment of Meditation, 2 p.m.

Every morning at dawn the town’s community of hundreds of monks make its way through the streets of Luang Prabang for tak bak, the gathering of morning alms in silence. Sadly, though, the event has taken on a zoolike aspect: Tourists with flashing cameras and throngs of onlookers have given a once peaceful and meditational event the feeling of a spectacle. For a more serene representation of the silence and prayer still involved in the monks’ daily lives, head instead to the permanent exhibition “Meditation” at Wat Khili. The evocative black-and-white images of monks meditating in the forest and around Luang Prabang were part of a 23-year project by the photographer Hans Georg Berger to capture how central meditation practice is to their discipline.

8. Fair Trade, 4 p.m.

Most visitors to Luang Prabang will head to the Night Market for their shopping, even though more and more products that show up there are actually foreign imitations (usually from China) of Lao handicrafts. An effort is being made to protect indigenous products with a new “Made in Laos” label that identifies items that are at least 60 percent handcrafted in the region. Meanwhile in nearby villages like Ban Xieng Lek, watch local weavers at their looms — don’t miss the textiles at Patta Textile Gallery — with nary a tourist or mass-produced elephant sculpture in sight. In the town proper, Ock Pop Tok carries textiles that have been made either in their Crafts Center (they also offer half-day courses) or through a local country collective, while the shop at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center (TAEC) offers well-priced handicrafts from nearby areas. For an even more intimate experience, Backstreet Academy has set up a four-hour course where visitors can go to a local’s home to learn how to weave; the cost is $29.

9. ­Zen Garden, 6 p.m.

Set in tropical gardens, Utopia, a combination cafe, yoga center, volleyball spot, bar and D.J. complex, transforms from a chilled-out hideaway for reading and relaxing in the morning to a full-on dance party later in the evening. Six o’clock is the golden hour between the two incarnations, a place to have a pre-dinner drink as dusk deepens. On the way there, duck into Vat Visoun (known also as Wat Wisunalat) — it’s one of the oldest temples in town, and one of the most beautiful.

10. Cook It Yourself, 7 p.m.

The Mekong River may be the busier and more famous of Luang Prabang’s two rivers, but the Nam Khan is arguably more picturesque — as is the view of town from its banks, a pretty tableau of tinkling lights. Cross the Bamboo Bridge (in dry months you can walk across, during the rainy season a boat ferries people over) to Dyen Sabai, a restaurant where you sit on reclining pillows for sindad, a kind of do-it-yourself barbecue, which costs about 70,000 lak for two, and involves meat, fish and vegetarian selections.