Refueling with Croissants in Laos

It has officially been a month that we have been on this adventure, and already we are heading to country #5. After so many adventures and mostly full days of travel and experiences, we decided Laos would be somewhat more relaxed. That turned out to be good planning as we both started off the week with colds and mostly just ventured out for meals and short walks until we were feeling better. Because of this, we decided to change up the format a bit to avoid so many “and then we took a nap…” , so instead of chronological, it’s organized by topic. We stayed a total of 6 days in Laos, all in the city of Luang Prabang which is an easy sub-2 hour flight from Bangkok.

A Home Base

Bangkok became a bit of a home base for us as we traveled between different places in SE Asia. The morning after the Cambodia tour ended we decided to have a relaxing day and catch up with a few things. We had the hotel hold our bags for the day and then ventured out to the theater to watch a traditional dance performance.

The dance was really interesting, and the costumes, they went through different eras and areas around Thailand. The last dance was more of a story, with a soldier and an underwater queen. They even came off the stage and danced through the aisles a bit. At the end as they did their curtain call the speakers played “If You’re Happy and You Know it..”, in English, surprising us for the second time this month.

We walked to a nearby coffee shop to have a snack and relax a bit. We found some unique street art and a covered market that was several blocks long, it just kept going!

That night we met up with Mr. Wander’s Aunt & Uncle for dinner. We found a rotating bar in a hotel nearby and had one drink but they didn’t have much for food so we ended up at a Chinese restaurant on a lower floor. We got a few different dishes but overall nothing really stuck out, escept the tea. Our teacups kept getting refilled sometimes I didn’t even see them do it, and it was a nice green tea.

We went back to the hotel for our bags and got a Grab Taxi to take to a different hotel right next to the DMK airport, our lovely family making sure we made it into the taxi safely. THe hotel we were staying at was connected to DMK by a skyway, which was really handy as we had an early flight the next day.

Noms

Of course I need to start with the food. Our hotel had a lovely buffet breakfast, served on a deck overlooking the Nam Khan river. There were tasty pork spring rolls, mangoes, dragonfruit, chocolate cakes, croissants, scrambled eggs, fried rice, and many other options.

For most of our lunches we ate pretty light, taking advantage of the fact that there are so many french cafes or bakeries so it was nearly always croissants. Especially Almond croissants, which are my favorite. Mr. Wander would swap between ham and cheese toasted sandwich or a Pan Au Chocolate. Sometimes even my almond one was served warm, my favorite was from Cafe Ban Vat Sene.

I was excited to find earl grey tea a few times, Once I drank a whole pot! I did have a Laos iced tea once which really reminded me of a Thai iced tea but I didn’t get one with milk. My favorite drink was a fresh passionfruit juice at a coffee stand by the night market, but I didn’t get a picture.

There were a few Italian restaurants around as well so we of course had to get tiramisu. This was one of the more unique platings I’ve seen for a dessert! We also had some Mango Panna Cotta one night as well.

We did get some Pad Thai one of the first days which was good because I was craving that since we had gotten back to Bangkok. It was pretty delicious.

A few times we had some noodle cups for lunch or dinner, especially when we weren’t feeling great, and our hotel had a hot water dispenser on our floor, I think meant for noodle cups since they had extra napkins and utensils too. Once, I made the mistake and my “Spaghetti” was actually so spicy I had to make Mr. Wander trade with me. It worked out, his cup might have been more fishy than he would have liked, but it took a good 30 minutes for my mouth to not hurt with just two bites of that spicy spaghetti!

The best dinner we ended up going back to on our last night was a cool place called Buoang. We of course had to try a few local beers, which the white ale was my favorite.

Then we got these spring rolls, we had never had a slice of mango in spring rolls before!! And of course the peanut sauce was just YUM. The main, though, was a Gnocchi Green Curry, and we have both decided to try and find a good recipe to make ourselves.

If you are wondering, yes I do have a list at this point of foods we’ve loved so much and the date and location we tried it.

Tour de Temples

Luang Prabang has several temples, it’s hard to walk more than a block or two without finding one, or seeing a monk walking on the street or working at the temple. The most famous is set high on Mount Phou Si hill and is called Wat Chom Si. At sunset you can find plenty of tour vans at the base of it waiting for their riders to come down. We opted not to go up there for sunset just for the crowds and other than the very top, we had the place to ourselves.

There were many stairs on the way up, and a spot with Buddha’s footprint in some sort of stairs into a cave, a reclining Buddha, and another cave containing a Buddha. There was even a sign telling you to “go into cave” near the Buddha in the second picture, you can see the white sign in the first picture. You did have to crouch quite a bit to get past the first section then you could stand up near the alter inside.

The stupa near the top was covered in gold but it did seem to need a bit of restoration. The view from the top was amazing, there are so many mountains, I absolutely loved it.

One of the mornings we woke up very early and walked towards a street to watch the giving of the alms, a ceremony where people of the town give food to the monks to eat as a type of offering, which occurs at 6am every day. The protocol is to be lower than the monks, in a sign of deference, and you put a small scoop of rice using your hands (they had gloves) into their bowl as they pass, and you are also to wear a scarf or stole tied around you a certain way. Before arriving to Laos, we had heard it would be a bit touristy, or that maybe the sheer number of tourists are making this more of an “experience” and less of a ceremony. There were once again vans lined up one street over and several tour guides telling their group what to do when they reached their set of small chairs. They each had a jar of sticky rice, plastic gloves, and a basket of candy bars. Some opted not to partake, and the only unfortunate part was that a few of these liked it get really close to the monks when taking pictures, despite there being signs asking tourists to keep back from the procession.

Across the street there were women with tables of more baskets of candy, and sticky rice containers you could purchase to donate to the monks yourself. I did read at one of the temples they recommended that you buy from a shop instead of those setting up tables in the street. There was also a spot for the monks to off load some of the candy they got into a container because they got so much and they weren’t even halfway down the street yet.

On our way there we did happen to see more of the “real” side, but unfortunately didn’t get a picture of it. In front of a few shops here and there some of the people were seated in small chairs on the sidewalk for when lines of monks would pass. There were several groups of monks, all seeming to arrange themselves from oldest to youngest, some looking only 6 or 7 years old. My best assumption would be that each group belonged or lived at a different temple.

Part way through we also visited the National Museum which is the former royal palace of Laos. We couldn’t take pictures inside the palace building but there is one room in there I found absolutely beautiful. The walls were a deep red and covered with mosaics made with green, blue, and many other colors of glass. The Museum grounds also had a temple, named Wat Haw Pha Bang.

On one of the days towards the end of the trip we walked from one temple to another taking many pictures. I don’t remember any specific things about each one, except that beautiful pink tree, so I will just leave this gallery for you to enjoy.

Floating to the Waterfall

Towards the end of the week, when we were finally feeling ourselves again, we booked a tour for a sunset cruise on the Mekong River that included a trip to the Kuang Si Waterfall about 30km from Luang Prabang.

Our tour was very small, only us two and a man from Germany who’s girlfriend was ill and had to miss the tour. We were in a long narrow boat that was thankfully covered from the sun, and sat really low to the water. It was almost like a large canoe, wide enough for 2 to sit in each row and an aisle down the middle. I didn’t think to get a picture of the boat, unfortunately, but here is a picture of Mr. Wander standing up before we got off the boat.

The boat was brought right into the beach and we got off using a 2×8″ board and walked up the hill. Waiting for us in this small village was a man with a pickup truck that we got into and he took us to the entrance of the Waterfall. After getting the tickets, we all got on a large electric cart which could hold about 10-12 people which took us to the start of the walk.

Before getting to the falls, the path took us to this bear sanctuary where they were trying to save bears from poaching and extinction. The reason people are killing bears are for the pre-pharmaceutical type home made medicine made using the gallbladder and other organs of the animals. Most of the bears were taking naps since it was a pretty warm day.

Finally we made it to the waterfall! We took a few pictures in the lowest area and a little ways up we stripped off the outer clothes and went for a swim! It was very cold but after a few seconds you got used to it and it was very refreshing. Mr. Wander got a few fish to nibble on his toes when he was back near the Waterfall. After we all toweled off we kept walking up the trail and the waterfall just kept going!

Finally we made it up to the tallest part of the falls. Normally you can hike up above the tallest part and even take a boat upstream but the trail was closed.

As we left we made a new friend!

“Kuang” means deer, and “Si” means dig, as the legend goes a wise man visited this place found a deer that had made its home behind the falls under an overhanging rock. After saying goodbye to our new friend we found the carts and our pickup driver and got back onto the boat to enjoy the sunset and a few snacks: BeerLaos and dehydrated banana and sweet potato chips. The sweet potato was my favorite!

Random sights around the city

Walking around we found several interesting sites, you could call this the “miscellaneous” section. First up was one of those signs giving direction and distance to many international cities, most of which we have planned to visit on this trip: Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.

While most of the tuktuks looked the same, some sort of motorcycle or small truck with a covered truck bed in the back for passengers, this is by far the coolest we saw.

While not quite as fancy, definitely just as cool was this snoopy bike and sidecar we saw people driving around in. While it was tempting, we decided not to rent one ;).

We always would find dogs laying in the street during the heat of the day, especially the small alley leading to our hotel. In one alley between a few houses we even found a chicken.

The river was our favorite view, well both rivers. Even on days we didn’t feel so well and just got snacks for lunch we at least tried to walk to this park at the end of the peninsula by where the Nam Khan River flows into the Mekong River. It became “our spot” by the end of the week, so relaxing and nice and shady in the trees.

Learning a bit of Laos

I found Laos difficult at times only because it was so close to Thailand, both the feel of the country and the language I often got the hello’s and thank you’s confused.

• Hello: Sa Ba Dee
• Thank you: Khob chai
• Cheers: Tham Keo
• Goodbye: La kone
• Currency: 100,000 Laotian Kip ~ $5 USD

Next up: Back to Thailand

Overall we really loved our time in Luang Prabang (if you ignore the part about being sick). It was such a laid back town, as soon as we started walking around I knew I liked the feel of it. It’s definitely a great place to relax and enjoy some tasty food for several days and I am glad we listened to everyone that encouraged us to go here! It felt like a small town and we almost started to recognize some of the people. Actually, at the National museum the passenger next to me on the flight from Bangkok came up and said hello! We had talked a little during the flight about our travel plans so it was fun to feel like we knew someone in the city. I hope you didn’t mind the change in format, let me know in the comments if you have a preference. Next time you hear from me it’ll be about our trip to the island of Koh Lipe in about as far south in Thailand as you can go.

La Kone!