Days 55-57: Luang Prabang

We got on the bus to Luang Prabang tired, itchy, sore and satisfied with our 2 day jungle experience. We had heard that the town we eventually called "the LPB" was a picturesque French-influenced town along the Mekong and such a unique national treasure that the entire town has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there was already plenty to look forward to.

After a muddy and winding 9 hour drive on a cramped minibus with 11 of our closest friends (apologies again to the 6'3" guy behind me into whom my foldaway chair kept collapsing, and many thanks to our driver for treating us to some amazingly awful Lao tunes on repeat), we arrived in Luang Prabang!

We then overcame a bold attempt at first tuk tuk price gouging, then borrowed cell phone price gouging (no I will not pay you $5 to make a 10 second phone call), and finally hotel confusion before finally arriving at our desired location just steps from the Mekong. After such a long and trying day, we felt that an indulgent drink at the swanky Apsara Hotel followed by dinner at the best restaurant in town (Tamarind) was in order.

Eggplant with plump green peppercorns

Sampling platter of Lao dishes with the ubiquitous sticky rice

Our first full day was spent taking in the town's sights by foot. Our first stop, which is now becoming a tradition of ours upon arriving in a new town, was to visit the local market. The rest of the day was mostly spent walking along the Mekong and visiting a number of ornately constructed and designed temples. Interestingly, the Lao people seem to have taken a liking to temple mosaics made with inlaid pieces of colored mirror - something I haven't seen in the rest of my Asian travels.

Eggplants at the market

Inlaid glass mosaic

That evening we enjoyed our second cooking class of the trip, hosted by Tamarind! The setting for the class was pretty unreal - an open air covered deck next to a river. Some things we learned:

• Sticky rice is a Lao staple. Steamed (unsticky) rice is not part of the local vocabulary. It is cooked by steam only (not in a rice cooker), in a bamboo basket over a charcoal grill and flipped elegantly by hand. To eat, hands must be used as a fork is ineffective.
  
• MSG is a legitimate ingredient in Lao cuisine, but our teacher gave us the option of leaving it out.
  
• Lao style fish sauce is fermented for a year and has an unappetizing opaque grey hue. Our teacher was sure to warn us to add the ingredient first, smell later.
  
• A mortar and pestle is required in any self-respecting Lao household.
  
• While almost identical in appearance, longan (previously my favorite fruit) is different from longkong (my new favorite, like a sweet grapefruit).
  

After cooking our meals individually from start to finish, we sat down to enjoy:

1. Eggplant jeow (dipping sauce)
   
2. Tomato jeow (dipping sauce)
   
3. Mok Pa - fish cooked in banana leaf
   
4. Lemongrass stuffed with chicken
   
5. Purple sticky rice with local fruits
   

All in all an incredible experience! It is no wonder the Tamarind cooking class is one of TripAdvisor's top 5 "to-dos" in Luang Prabang. (And at a fraction of the cost of our Vietnamese class!)

Our class instructor describing the ingredients we would use

Showing off our cute packets of fish wrapped in banana leaves

We then capped off the evening at Utopia, a surreal riverside bar. If you can dream it, they have it: creative drinks, thatched open air huts over the water, cushy floor mattresses for reclining, hookahs, board games, life-sized Jenga, lounge music and plenty more. Eventually we tore ourselves away to rest up for what would be a day of hard labor (OK, half day).

By hard labor I mean we farmed rice at an organic rice farm! Given that we went through the entire plant/harvest cycle of a rice farm in a few hours, we realize that it was mostly a hands-on academic exercise but it was fun nonetheless. We learned how to separate bad kernels from good, how to plow the field behind Susan the water buffalo (for an added dose of authenticity, she went #2 while I was plowing), how to plant seedlings in knee-high mud, and how to harvest. Never again will we look at rice the same way without appreciating what it had to go through to get to our table! Strangely no one on the hotel circuit seemed to know anything about this rice experience, so I'm glad we took matters into our own hands and called the farm ourselves.

Susan really loved her salt

Plowing the fields

Sorting out the bad rice from the good rice

We then rewarded our rice paddy efforts with a visit to Kuang Si Falls, an impressive waterfall with a series of swimming pools below. About 25 km from town, the waterfall is in a totally different climate! Despite some pretty heavy off-and-on rain, we plunged right in with the best of them - aided by a rope swing for added excitement.

me taking the plunge

Stan following suit

By then Stan's overdue GI issues finally presented themselves, but we still managed to enjoy a high class Lao meal before getting our feet nibbled by tiny fish and shopping at the night market. For the record, I am now the proud owner of 2 pairs of hippie pants! I hear they are all the rage in Sacramento.

Fish chowing down on our skin. It felt like hundreds of little fingers!

Our last day was spent rather lazily due to our nonstop adventures and Stan's sad stomach. We explored the National Museum (formerly the palace, home to a beautiful throne room of red walls with inlaid mirror mosaic) before I received two massages (one without and one with Stan). And why not? My muscles needed loosening before yet another long bus ride. Also, I need to take advantage of these $4/1 hour massages while they last...