It’s official, I may be falling in love with Laos.
The food – it’s amazing. Spicy hot hot hot papaya salad, laab (a sort of meat and herb salad – also great with fish or tofu), little baskets of sticky rice to roll into a ball and dip into the good stuff, curries, tasty spicy dips, French pastries, fresh fruit, gallons of Beer Lao…
Oh yeah, is it wrong to drink more Beer Lao in a day than water? It’s so much more refreshing and about the same price.
We left Vientiane for Vang Vieng by private car, which turned out to be a very good call as the roads were rough and M was car sick… We finally arrived that afternoon and just about fell over ourselves when we saw the view from our room.
To say Vang Vieng is beautiful may be the understatement of the century. It is a perfect, dreamlike landscape. Lush, green, tropical flowers, spectacular mountains and limestone outcroppings, dead quiet roads with occasional motorbikes as well as farmers with old style carts. Long boats line the river. This place is the definition of serene. I find it hard to believe this is supposed to be a party town and I was sceptical about coming here with M. Turns out it was the best choice ever.
Sorry Grandma, but we made the educated decision that it was safe enough to hire motorbikes to drive around the countryside with M. We all had helmets, and never got over 30kph. Within three minutes we were the only vehicle on the road and were in countryside that hasn’t changed for thousands of years. We drove about 7km to the ‘blue lagoon’ and a famous cave. The climb to the cave was torturous with M but we made it and saw the beautiful Buddha which resides there, then swam in the beautiful blue lagoon to refresh ourselves before the drive home. The day was a definite highlight of the whole trip so far.
If the trip to Vang Vieng was rough, the trip to Luang Prabang was shocking. The journey is only 170km, but took about 7 hours through windy mountain roads. There’s spectacular scenery but the roads are stomach churning and M spewed five times… Fun times. She was a trooper and again we made it in the end. She is 100% recovered.
Luang Prabang feels like the furthest from home I’ve ever been. It’s not really about distance, but difference and difficulty. This was a colonial outpost during the French Indochina days, and apparently it took longer to sail here up the Mekong from Saigon than from France to Saigon. I can believe it. The fact anyone made it through the jungle and mountains back then thoroughly amazes me.
Yesterday I went to a cooking school for a four hour class which blew my mind. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about food, and you know I do get excited about food. Lao food is so different, delicious and unique. Milder and more fragrant than Thai. Love.
Feeling excited you did cooking school!