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Published: November 11th 2011
If you want to see something really scary watch me get off a bus at 6:30 in the morning after traveling for 26 hours straight from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Vientiane in Laos. It's the stuff nightmares are made of, one wrong look and I'll shoot you my death glare and it is hot! Too bad we were a day late for Halloween, I could have went as myself and scared some kids. In hindsight we would have planned out our trip a little better geographically speaking, since we're heading north again not too far from where we started in Hanoi, Vietnam and we have to go back south to Bangkok to head back home, but oh well! A few more hours on the bus won't kill me, now whether I kill someone else is another story..
We were excited to come to Laos because we had heard such good things from other travelers, everyone talked about how laid-back and friendly people are and how beautiful the scenery is. When we started this trip we didn't know exactly where we would end up but we're really glad we made it to this slow-paced and friendly country. Laos is trying
hard to shed its notoriety of being one of the poorest countries in the world and they have taken great steps to reach that goal as their economy has grown steadily in the last decade. One reason for it's slow development can be attributed to the Secret War which led to Laos' other notorious statistic of being one of the most heavily bombed countries, most of it taking place during the height of the Vietnam war after Americans learned that massive amounts of war supplies were being funneled down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It's reported that a plane full of bombs would hit every 8 minutes during the height of the war. The influx of tourists has also helped improve their economy but as always tourism has its up-sides and its down-sides. While it brings more money into the country it has also forced a developing country to deal with the extra consumption that visitors bring and proper waste management and preserving natural resources have not been able to keep up with the demands of Westerners. More and more organizations are cropping up to educate locals and tourists about how to enjoy traditional Lao culture while treading lightly. We
Patuxai in Vientiane
View from the top. This building commemorates Lao who died in pre-revolutionary wars and was built in 1969 with cement donated by the US that was intended to be used for a new airport runway. hope that this sleepy country doesn't slip into the 21st century too quickly, we like it just the way it is. Laos unofficial motto can be seen everywhere from bumper stickers to t-shirts to restaurant menus: P.D.R. (Please Don't Rush). A reminder to westerners to slow down and enjoy the slow-paced way of life and soak up all the country has to offer.
The capital city of Vientiane didn't overly impress us but that wasn't the town we had heard so much about from our fellow travelers. We spent the day cycling around the city visiting wats (yes even MORE wats!) and we even went bowling. We had a good time at the bowling alley although the only people there were Westerners, I'm not sure if the art of bowling has really caught on in SE Asia yet. After a mere 24 hours we left Vientiane to head to Vang Viene, a place where cycling, tubing, kayaking, and trekking are the big draws.
We took a short 3 1/2 hour bus ride from Vientiane to Vang Viene and we liked the small town from the moment we stepped off the bus. It seemed like just the sort of
Blue Lagoon
Joel didn't want to get back in because the water is very cold but he did it for me so I could take a picture. small town we needed to unwind and take it easy. We took the first hotel room we looked at, $6 for a clean, no frills room which is exactly what we were looking for, and our cheapest yet! But we soon learned that Vang Viene has become quite the popular tourist destination and this was never more evident than walking down the endless rows of restaurants that played episodes of Friends on repeat. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the people who worked at these places, to have to watch that show all day everyday would be more than I could handle. The tubing wasn't quite what we expected, the floating bars promoting whiskey buckets (literally a bucket full of whiskey) draws a very young party crowd. We felt like it was a perpetual Spring Break but luckily Vang Viene has a lot more to offer than whiskey buckets.
Mostly we went to bed early and woke up late and spent our days lounging by the river drinking fruit shakes and exploring new flavors of Lao cuisine. We must have had more fruit shakes in Vang Viene than I've had in my entire life, I don't know what
they put in those things but man they are SO good! On our last day in town we cycled out of town to visit some caves and take a dip in the famous blue lagoon. And it was very blue and very very cold.
After 5 lazy days we finally made our way to Luang Prabang, where the whole town is a UNESCO world heritage site. Here we have really delved into Lao culture and how it differs from the other countries we've visited so far. One of the first things I noticed was that Laotians don't use chopsticks, they usually just eat with their fingers. The main staple in their cuisine is sticky rice which they form into little balls with their hands and eat it along with the main dish. The food is similar to Vietnamese and Thai food in that rice and noodles are the main staples but the flavors are distinctly different. Because Laos is a landlocked country and still tucked away from the rest of the world has made its cuisine slower to enter into Westerners diets. What better way to learn about culture and cuisine than to take a cooking class!
The
Tamnak Lao Restaurant offered a class with 7 dishes and a market tour for $30 which seemed like a great value, plus the extra money from the class is donated to help impoverished Lao children get an education and to help families pay for medical expenses. We started the day with a fast walk through the local market and then we headed back to the restaurant to whip up some dishes. The first dish was a Luang Prabang salad that was a star because of the homemade mayonnaise dressing. Here is the recipe! It's super duper easy.
Lao Mayonnaise Dressing
2 hard boiled eggs
2 T oil
2 T white vinegar
1 T sugar
1/2 t white pepper
1/4 t salt
Take the yolk of the hard boiled eggs and place them in a food processor or mortar and pestle. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Use it as a dressing with your favorite salad ingredients. We used lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, crushed peanuts, and the white of the hard boiled eggs. Delicious!
Then we made a fried sticky rice noodle dish with chicken and vegetables, this was also one of my favorite
dishes. Then we made a chicken salad with lemongrass, banana flower, lime leaves, cilantro, and arugula which was very refreshing and tasty. The pork casserole (which is made in a wok, don't ask me why they call it a casserole) was my least favorite dish. The best dish hands down was the fried eggplant with pork, a very simple and amazingly tasty dish that everyone should make. Here's how.
Khua Maak Kheua Gap Moo
(Fried eggplant with pork)
60 grams pork
3 large spring onions
1 asian eggplant
2-3 garlic cloves
2 T oyster sauce
1/4 t salt
1/2 t sugar
2 1/2 T oil
1. Cut the spring onion into 2 cm lengths.
2. Cut the eggplant into 3 cm lengths, then cut each piece in half lengthwise. (if using "regular" eggplant cut into cubes)
3. Crush garlic in mortar or use a garlic press
4. Heat 2 T oil in wok, add the eggplant and stir fry until it begins to soften and turn a golden color. Do not overcook and make the eggplant too soft.
5. Place the cooked eggplant in a dish and set aside.
6. Place the remaining oil into the wok
Cooking Class, final products
From right to left: chicken salad, vermicelli noodles with wood ear mushrooms, pork casserole, fried eggplant with pork, chicken curry. The small red dish in front is a chili dipping sauce which is very popular in Laos, they eat it with just about everything. with the crushed garlic and stir until the garlic begins to change color.
7. Add the pork and stir fry until cooked.
8. Add salt and sugar
9. Keep stir frying and add the oyster sauce, spring onion, and cooked eggplant. Fry until the onion softens but is still firm.
10. Taste and add more salt if desired.
This dish was a hit with the class. The other dishes didn't stimulate my taste buds nearly as much as this dish but they weren't too bad either. Laotians don't have kitchens as we know them, in fact they don't even use ovens. Instead they cook outside on hot coals in a ceramic pot and eating is very much a social affair. In Lao they believe that if you eat alone the food tastes bad. And where there is food there is almost always alcohol. In Laos the drink of choice is called Lao Lao which is a whiskey made with fermented sticky rice. This is powerful stuff! Tastes like gasoline, yum! At night you can see the men gathered around tables on sidewalks eating food and passing around a bottle of Lao Lao and as the night wears on they
A traditional Lao dish
I can't remember what this is called, but you wrap the dips and noodles in lettuce leaves and its a perfectly tasty light lunch. get a little more rowdy and begin to sing songs and their joviality is infectious.
Like most SE Asian countries the type of foods eaten depends largely on the season and what's available. Because Laos is such a poor country they have learned to eat anything that walks, slithers, flies, or swims to get the protein they need in their diet. This includes rats, moles, bats, frogs, the larvae of wasps, ant eggs, and everything else you can imagine. Here is an excerpt from my cookbook I received from class, maybe you can make more sense out of it than I can:
"Every part of a pig and chicken is used and a great delicacy is a chicken or fish soup with the head of the chicken, rooster, or fish on display cooked in the soup. One of the side products of the pig is an unusual substance called dried pork. It has the texture of fairy floss, is light yellow in color and tastes very much like cardboard to a westerner but is greatly enjoyed by the Lao when eaten with sticky rice". I love that they use every part of the animal while cooking, I wish
Tuk-tuk back to town
We made it the 36 kilometers to the waterfalls but had to get a ride back to town. we used more of the offal in cooking in the US but what the heck is fairy floss and what unusual substance are they referring too? Maybe someone else can enlighten me.
Someone in my class who was on her way to Vietnam asked for recommendations on cooking classes from me and said that she heard that Lao and Khmer (Cambodian) food was better than Vietnamese food because they used more spices. I'm pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor, because doesn't everyone know Vietnamese food is the BEST?!? Thai food is a close second but Khmer and Lao food, while delicious, can't hold a candle to Vietnamese cuisine! Maybe I'm biased?
On our last day in Luang Prabang we decided to rent some bicycles to the Kuang Si Waterfalls which our guide book stated was 36 kilometers (22 miles) away and was a good bike ride because of its "gentle undulating road" through rice paddies. Maybe its gently undulating for Lance Armstrong but for us it was pure brutality. My thighs were on fire by the time we got there and I couldn't have pedaled another inch, Joel was in just as bad of shape, we
both did our share of whining. Luckily the waterfalls were well worth the effort, it was supernaturally beautiful with blue water that begs to be swam in and the falls continue for quite a ways so there are numerous viewpoints to enjoy. There was also a bear rescue habitat on the way to the falls so we got to see some Asian bears which was really neat, they are small and cuddly and very playful.
Now we're going to be really crazy and head to Bangkok where they are currently having the worst floods the country has ever experienced. We'll spend 10 hours on the bus to head back to Vientiane in Laos where we'll transfer to the train station for the next 13 hour leg of our trip. Once we get into the city we'll most likely head south to Thailand's famous islands and spend the remainder of our time sipping pina coladas on a sunny beach. Then it's back to Bangkok where we hope by then the floods will have receded so we can enjoy the city and its markets before we fly back home. Only 3 weeks left! It's been an amazing journey, thanks for reading!
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mom
non-member comment
Beautiful!
This shot of the falls behind you guys is awesome! for sure one for the scrap book. great job on the blog once again. i can't decide if you should be a writer or a geography teacher. how about a show on the travel channel you can cook and travel and the pay would be great too!