the most sophisticated town in southeast asia?

the sophisticated side of louang prabang
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After 2 days on the boat we were looking forward to arriving in Louang Prabang.  We'd heard from lots of people that it was a great place to stay, and we weren't dissapointed.

The town itself is a little way out from the tourist town, and for our purposes was largely ignored...This does mean that the tourist part of town has an odd feel to it.  It was most like being in Bansko, Bulgaria (see entry number 1).  Louang Prabang is also a World Heritage town, and also seems to have a wooden-shop-signs-only rule, which does make things look a little olde worlde.

bundles of dried rats

i don't know what these are, but the locals were making a lot of them.
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The reason for the World Heritage status is that the town has a huge number of Buddhist Temples (wats, they call them over here).  Many of the temples can be visited, and with the help of our guidebook we were able to compare and contrast buddhist architectural styles, all very exciting.

Whilst in town we got a bit confused about what we were doing next (partly because a tour agent lady told us that we could fly to Hanoi for $80, and then later changed it to $180, so perhaps we weren't as confused as her).  In the end we organised a Vietnam visa (they are only available at the border if you fly in, which we could no longer afford).  This meant we had 6 days in town.  Most of which were spent looking at the handicraft market and shops, and of course, enjoying the really classy food that is on offer in town.  The posh restaurants don't come cheap by Laos standards, but they are pretty good, and worth splashing out on.

mekong sunset
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I did another cookery course, this one was not as good as A Lot of Thai in Chiang Mai, but still pretty enjoyable.  I think the main problem was (surprise, surprise) Laos food is not as nice as Thai.  The main taste Laos people look for in their food is bitterness, which is not ideal in my book.  We started they day at Tamarind cookery school with a trip around the market.  It was interesting it have a guide for a market tour as they made a few things make sense to me.  For example, I'd always wondered why markets like this in developing nations always have meat just laid out on tables all day in 25degC heat, with just a fly swatter to keep them fresh.  Turns out that ALL the meat was freshly killed that morning, so it doesn't need to be refridgerated to keep it from going off.

paying my respects to the buddah
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We also saw some bundles of dried rats, which apparently add a good bitterness to soups.  Really...

Interestingly, in Laos fish sauce seems to be sold in buckets, with the fish still in.  The buckets are left for around a year before they are discarded, and apparently you know when they are ready for consumption when they smell so much that the flies STOP buzzing around them.  Nice.

The cooking itself was good too, everything was done over coal fires, as few people here have gas stoves.  And we learnt lots more about sticky rice.  It seems to be the national food of Laos.  Laos people eat around 1kg of it every day, they need to eat so much as because of the poorness of the rest of their diet they have to get 70% of their calories and nutrients from rice.

lounging. we did a lot of this here. too many nice restaurants. we had to take a leaky boat to get to this one, but the cusions and the puppy were worth it.
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On our other days in Louang Prabang we hired some bikes and went for a ride out to a little beach by the river, which was covered in litter.  But would otherwise have been nice.  Also took a ride out to a handicrafty village, where Alex bought a fancy scarf thing.  Super, and all at bargain prices.

Best meal whilst in town was probably a Laos BBQ we had at a restaurant next door to Laos Laos Garden, a famousish backpacker bar, that was a bit loud for us.

Anyway, our restaurant was half the price, and the BBQ was great.  You get a bucket of hot coals in the middle of the table with a BBQ on top.  The BBQ is like a sombrero hat with a turned up rim.  You poor soup into the rim, and then place other ingredients (tofu, green beans, spinachy stuff and eggs) into the soup to cook it.  Then you place meat (possibly rat) onto the serrated peak of the hat so that all the juices drip down into the soup to make it extra tasty.  It was dead nice, and really improves your chopstick skills.

lots of french style buildings here.
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On our last morning in town we got up very early (5:30ish) to watch the monk alms giving.  Basically, monks in Laos (and Thailand) are considered lazy by other countries, and with good reason, instead of working to grow food or make beer the monks do extra praying on behalf of the townsfolk.  As a payment for this, very morning, the people stand by the side of the road with big bowls of sticky rice, and possibly bananas place food into the personal bowls of passing monks.  It makes for a very peaceful and photogenic spectacle as the monks follow a set route around town in their orange robes and the scurry off back to their wats once their bowls are full.