Luang Prabang

Woke up to find this amazing town, it was previously a French colony so the buildings are soooooo Kapstadt International, French-Indochinese architecture, some of Laos best cuisine and most sacred Buddha image. It’s full of monks from tiny little boy monks to ancient wise old men all draped in my favorite colour orange.

First things first - a little walk to orient ourselves and then ……. A massage of course to smooth out the aches and pains - excruciating but hey afterwards you feel like a million dollars. Bill and Nick are now connoisseurs at massage.

While walking through this town each building is more charming than the next, lots of architectural ideas for Elands, this is a stunning town and I think we will be back.

First time I’ve ever seen Alms? (Where the monks walk around and people give them offerings, awesome sight all the monks) It starts at sunrise you hear the gongs from the Wats then they walk through the streets with these pots that people put there offerings into.

We also took ourselves off to the local theatre, being a Unesco world heritage town they preserve all heritage including theatre, it was well , mm fabulous costumes, lots of Wats,(wots a wat you may ask, a Budhist temple) the Kings Palace, also popped into the art academy and saw all the students art, impressive.

The thing is that I am such a foodie that if there is a food market I’m there, little prepared was I for the reality of Laos, The morning of the monk Alms, Craig and I stumbled upon the one in the old city, it was horrendous, how do you describe beautiful ½ meter lizards tied up I mean their front legs tied behind their backs, dead birds, small birds in cages dried rats/squirrels, all kinds of bugs, dead and alive (saw a lady working on a big bowl of bugs emitting rustling sounds, removing the big legs so the bugs cant crawl out the bowl straight out of raiders of the lost ark), made me feel queasy and tearful, Craig wanted to buy all the lizards and set them free.

Tamarind – is the name of a good restaurant and cookery school, owned by a Laos man and his Australian wife. They do a whole fish packed with lemongrass and herbs wrapped in banana leaves and baked on a barbecue, it was a three course meal , wonderful, and so I arranged to come back for a cooking class – perfect last day in Louang.

Phabang.

On my cooking course with the first signs of a dodgy stomach we headed early for the very un-touristy local market and all was well until the guy said anyone vegetarian or squeamish should wait by the car, ohhh do I wish I had listened to my tummy, how do you describe this meat market , well an abundance of flies, no refrigeration, congealed blood thickened with rice flour (people eat this) pigs heads – a delicacy, eggs with numbers on mean embryos inside and people buy these for more money and eat it (a combo of egg and chicken taste I guess) YUUUUK, also buffalo skin with the hair and fat in strips they liken it to biltong cook it on the Barbie and yes well eat it too, I think the worst for me was the womb of a water buffalo with a baby inside, ok it was just the end for me I ran for the car.

The cooking course was superb and would have been exceptional barring the fact I had the first dodgy tummy since our journey began, I learned the essence of Laos cooking which I can’t wait to share with all of you so no info.

So with another 6 hours on a bus trip the next day we have opted for a VIP air-conditioned bus with a toilet. (We are learning!)