This morning we’re off to Luang Prabang. It is an ancient royal city situated at the confluence of the Mekong and Khan rivers. The area is surrounded by limestone mountains which makes for a pretty countryside.
We have a quick breakfast at the hotel. I decide to have some museli and yogurt and one egg and Judith has her regular one egg as well. I have now had eggs everyday since I’ve started this vacation and that’s so unusual from my regular breakfast regime that I have when I’m at home. Once again we have the restaurant all to ourselves.
Today we’re heading southward direction about 140 km. It’s about 3 hours of driving time but of course, there will be stops on the way there. It’s a mountainous road along Highway 1C, but fortunately most of the road is intact and undamaged.
Our first stop was the local Nong Khiaw Market. By the time we get there, the market has few clients and some of the vendors have already left. People rise early here so the market is busy at sunrise with many customers to get their daily market supplies. We walk through the stalls and see lots of interesting food items.
Chilies! Lao food uses a lot of these things. All the time. For every meal. There was one episode at the market where we wanted to try some sticky rice thing on a stick and we asked Phonsy how spicy it was. He tried it and said it was about 5%. I tried it and reported it at 50% of my max tolerance level. Judith tried it and she said it was trying to kill her.
Lao Aubergine
Ginger
Something unknown green stuff
Purple Sweet Potato
More Lao Aubergine
Chayote
Lemongrass
I took many more market pictures, but there’s only so much room here. We bought some longans and a couple of oranges to have later. Total price $1.24 Cdn equivalent.
Back into the car, we continue to head south. In the town of Ban Bom we stop and watch someone prepare Kaipen, the Laos deep fried snack made from river weed. We had seen this drying a few days ago and had bought some. Today we pulled over to watch a woman put the items onto drying trays. This was a for profit enterprise. The river weed is purchased from local suppliers so all she does is concentrate on the assembly of the Kaipen sheets.
She places a large sheet of river weed plastic on her work table which has the dimensions of the finished products drawn on her table base. The Kaipen is already layered overtop the plastic and she is careful to cover any bald spots and smooth out the river weed. She uses the side of her straight brush to smooth out the edges of the river weed sheet so it’s close to the dimensions on her table. She pours a stock made from tamarind onto the sheet. The river weed sheet then is transferred face down onto the drying mat and the plastic sheet gently removed. She stacks the drying on top of her existing finished stack and will place them out to dry once the low lying clouds dissipate and the sun comes out.
(I hope this is the right video… I can’t confirm when I’m in draft mode!)
Phonsy is translating her conversation with us. I can hear someone’s mobile phone ringing next to the house, and no one is picking up. When it rings for the second time, she goes over and answers it. We learn that there is a big ASEAN Summit in Cambodia this weekend and there is a huge order for Kaipen of which she is a part of. She’s busy trying to fill in the orders and ignoring the calls because she can’t fill them anyways. We watch as she sprinkles roasted sesame seeds all over the Kaipan sheet and uses a hand held mandoline to slice off paper thin garlic and tomato slices that are added on top of the Kaipan.
We walk down the street to see Kaipen sheets already drying in the sun.
We’re in the car heading south. We pass groves of rubber and teak trees planted as commercial crops and rice and corn fields.
I’m fascinated by the ingenuity of how people maximize the carrying capacity of their motorbikes. In China and India, they were able to stack things high pretty high on the back seat. Here, I believe this is the original concept idea for bike panniers.
We’re basically following the Nam Ou river as it winds it’s way from Nong Khiaw to our next destination Pak Ou Caves. On our way downstream we see a dam. It’s the Nam Ou 1 Hydropower Plant, one of seven dams on the Nam Ou. These dams were built to provide electricity to Northern Laos and to other projects including the new Laos China Railway. The excess electricity is about 2/3rds of its capacity and this is being sold to Vietnam. We stopped on the highway and I walked down an access road to get some pictures.
View from down river. To the left of the road was a building that had about 5 doors, each of which was an office. I walked down this road to get a picture of the sign near the gatehouse indicating the name of the facility. As I walked past this building, in view of the uniformed men sitting at their desks, each of them rose up and out of their offices…. I took my picture quickly and turned back up the road walking at a brisk pace to join up with Phonsy and Judith.
View looking down river. The water level was surprisingly much much lower than the other side of the dam.
We’re back on the road again until we reach Pak Ou Village were Nam Ou river flows into the Mekong River. First up is the Pak Ou Buddhist temple. It is reportedly the oldest Buddha Temple in Laos.
The temple has been renovated, but the facade maintains it original paint.
Next up is lunch. We arrive at the Manivan Restaurant and Guesthouse on the Mekong riverfront. Inside the restaurant are several mammoth tables made of single slabs of wood. One is over 6 feet wide and 5” deep. They’re pretty impressive tables.
We have lunch by the river. It has a view of the Pak Ou Caves where we will go after we finish lunch.
View from the restaurant. Pak Ou cave is where all the boats are docked across the river.
On the way to our boat, we walk over a sandy beach and saw motorbikes with riders disembarking from the open long-tail style boats. They just drive off the boat via a ramp and then fishtail over the sand to the road. I thought it was an unusual transportation method.
Motorbikes unloading from the boats. You can see two riders in the boat behind sitting on their motorbikes.
We board a ferry boat that takes us over the river to the Pak Ou Caves. This boat had two seats that were chaise lounges so I asked Judith to recline in one so I could snap a pic. It’s great to have a willing victim.
The ride to the caves wasn’t very long and we were soon disembarking. Theres’s a set of steep stairs going into the first cave.
View of ccve 1 from the dock. If you zoom in on the cave wall by the top of the steps you’ll see white line markings showing where the flood waters reached in various years.
We climb up a set of stairs into a cave that houses thousands of Buddha statues. They’re placed on stands, and inside where there’s a semi level surface.
A small section of the cave. Every year more are added during New Years celebrations.
The second cave is reached by a long windy staircase of around 200 steps which Judith declined and instead waited for Phonsy and I to explore and return. The second cave is larger and deeper and also has a whole bunch of Buddha statues.
The upper cave has Buddha statues that can be seen in the picture. There are also side caves that also contain statues. In total there are currently 4,000 of them.
From the caves we get back onto our boat with the chaise lounges and we make our way down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. Is a picturesque ride due to the evening sun and lots of scenery and activity on the river.
Cruising down the Mekong.
When we reach Luang Prabang, we dock right at a set of stairs that go up the steep riverbank and make our way up. At the top of the stairs, we meet up with our driver Noy, who takes us to our next hotel.
Our cruise boat from Pak Ou Caves to Luang Prabang.
Another long flight of stairs. If if weren’t for all the food I’ve been eating, I would be down a few pounds.
We get driven to our hotel by 4:00 where we get to settle in. We don’t have long because we’re going to be picked up in an hour and a half for some evening activities.
We’re in the Villa Chitdara Hotel in the downtown area of the city. It’s close to markets and dining spots. Our room looks like this:
Our room is nice and spacious complete with complementary towel swans on the bed. We’re happy with the set up because we’re here for three nights.
The evening’s activities first involves a couple of games of Pétanque. It’s like bocce ball with a french name played on a curling sized rink with a gravel base.
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The Pétanque court facility
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The balls are slightly larger than tennis balls and very heavy. The smaller red ball is the target ball.
The game is very similar to bocce or curling where you score points by having your balls closer to the target than your opponent. We played teams of Phonsy/Judith and Noy/Victoria and while the games were close, one team was victorious both times. It turns out Phonsy and Noy are both very good players. I was impressed with their accuracy at knocking out opposition balls from 20-25 feet away. The best throwing technique involved lobbing the ball with lots of topspin. Both Phonsy and Noy knew the players on the other court and many of them would come over and watch our game, perhaps to be amused by how feeble two of the players were.
The players. Top Row: Noy and Phonsy
We finished our game and headed to a Khiem Khan Barbeque, one of the many Laos barbeque establishments. On our way, I was looking at the moon and wondering why it looked like a half moon when it was almost a full moon the previous night. I deduced it must be a lunar eclipse and unfortunately I had left my camera at the hotel. Darn. Usually I know these eclipse things in advance but I don’t really read much news when I’m traveling. A missed opportunity to take a cool picture of the eclipse.
The barbeque is really a difficult experience if your a pescatarian. The broth is always made with pork and chicken bones, fish isn’t always an option and its cooked over a grill that’s greased with a chunk of lard. However, Judith has been tolerant with these issues that might send others off the deep end.
A piece of lard…
Most of this dinner, however, she amused herself with feeding the excess meat (Phonsy ordered way to much) to the restaurant family’s dog, Mimi. In Laos, most of the family pets aren’t treated the way they are in western cultures. They’re mostly critters that provide protection, like barking when strangers are present. They’re not used to being petted or cleaned. In many cases as they don’t come into the house. Mimi was cautious when being fed. At first the meat had to be tossed near her, but after a number of tries, she was able to get Mimi to feed out of her hand. When Judith finished with the meat, Mimi growled at her. So ungrateful.
Food being cooked. There was also another soup only pot on the burner beside us.
We finished at the restaurant and were driven back to the hotel for the night. It’s about 9:00 and we need to be ready for 8:30 for a walking tour of Luang Prabang. It’s been a fun day.
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