It's a small world after all

So had to post this to remember...brain cells have slowed down considerably as of late...we had dinner at our new favourite pizza place tonight and were seated next to a young Canadian couple from Toronto. Turns out she used to work for our Toronto Deloitte Financial Advisory practice and went to Queens with our CEO's daughter. I find it amazing that you can be sitting in a small 6 table restaurant in Luang Prabang, Laos of all places and run into someone who used to work in the same building! 

The origin of silk

Silk, as you probably know, comes from silkworms. In the tiedying course we did at Ok Pop Tok, we saw silkworms, and learned how they raise the silkworms, and how they get the silk from the worms. First, the silkworms are born in a circular wooden pan, on a bed of mulberry leaves. This is all they eat, so of course, they only poo ground up mulberry leaves. The leaves are said to be great for your stomach, and for people who have diabetes, so people make a tea out of the silkworms poo. It's called silkworm poo tea (no joke, it was on the menu!), and if you think that's gross, (well, maybe just a little gross!), it's actually just mulberry leave tea. Well, you learn something new everyday! Anyway, the silkworms grow up, until they reach about 2-3 inches in length, and then they make their cocoons. People have to spin the silk from the cocoons before the moths (once silkworms) come out. But it doesn't really matter, because even if they die, they'll end up dying shortly after anyway. They're total life cycle is about 45 days only. The moths lay new eggs, and die. The life cycle starts over again. 30 or 40 cocoons can make up to 900 m of silk! I thought it was really cool to see how they make silk, and the silkworm poo tea thing is...interesting! Well, that's all for today!

Day 49: Alms Ceremony

One of the cool things to see in Luang Prabang that you can see in most Buddhist countries if you know where to look is the monks receiving their alms in the early morning.

Beth had gone out early yesterday morning to survey the scene, and she pretty much confirmed what we had read in a lot of guide books and online forums: tourists were turning the alms ceremony into a bit of a gong show. In the old tourist centre, she saw bad behaviour: running around, taking in-your-face photos with flashes, following the monks, even a couple of tour buses following one pack of monks.

On her way back, Beth noticed lots of monks in our little residential neighbourhood doing the ceremonial walk in a much quieter, respectful, atmosphere. So bad has it gotten in "town" that the monks had threatened to stop the ceremony but the government threatened to continue it using monk "actors" so the real monks relented. Thank Buddha!

So Abby and I woke up at 5:30 and walked out our door in search of the orange clad monks. One look to the right and we saw a group headed our way. We also saw the occasional woman or grounp of women sitting on a stool, at the side of the road waiting for the monks. Not wanting to be a distraction, and knowing you should be seated lower than the monks if you want to participate or watch the ceremony, we walked away from them looking for a seat.

We watched in awe as the group passed, collecting a small bit of rice or other food from the women in the street and storing them in their alms containers strung around their shoulders. We found another seat down the road where we saw more women waiting, and over the next half hour were amazed with about one hundred more monks in various group sizes as they passed by and occasionally chanted.

It was beautiful to watch. I was amazed at how quickly they streamed by, collected their alms silently, and moved on. I also thought how incredible it was that the local women would wake up each morning to prepare and offer these alms. Every morning, every day, every week, and on and on. It is actually a bit of a social thing for them, as neighbours would sit and chat, waiting for the monks.

The monks themselves were of all ages - from about 6 or 7, to in their sixties. They were all clean shaven and dressed in orange or different shades close to orange. They really moved fast, and we were amazed that they didn't flinch walking over some tough gravelly patches of road in their bare feet.

The whole scene was very peaceful and inspiring.

We've heard conflicting reports of whether the monks subsist solely on the alms, or whether they actually collect so much that they give excess to those in need. Based on what we saw, I would guess the latter to be true.

After recovering some lost sleep, we took the girls over to Big Brother Mouse - a non profit publishing and English language education center founded by a westerner to get Lao kids reading (it's traditionally been a big problem). This center is really a resource for locals who want to speak English with foreigners. We sat down and were mobbed by keen locals hoping to hone their skills. It was a lot of fun and a great way to expose the kids to some local culture. Robin got a whole list of cultural notes from her buddy that she'll hopefully blog about. English really is the key to prosperity in Southeast Asia. It helps you get a job, mainly in tourism which is one of the highest paid industries in most of the less developed nations.

I found out that education is not free here, despite Laos being a socialist country. High school costs about $25USD a year and university costs around $200 a year. It sounds cheap but based on average incomes here, it's no wonder the literacy rates and educations levels are still quite low. Sad. But thanks to organizations like Big Brother Mouse, things are starting to improve.

It was another sleepy afternoon - some cards, a really nice lunch with my first Hoegarden, oh, icy cold Hoegarden, in Asia. Did I mention the Hoegarden? For the price of an expensive entree, it was well worth it. If you can't find me for the rest of the day, don't go looking in this cafe...... Hmmmmm....

Tie die

Yesterday we went to go to do some tie die scarfs. My mom Abby and I went to go do it, we just left daddy alone by himself to go sit somewhere. So we toke a tuk tuk over to the the place where we did the tie die scarfs. So we went to go sit down and wait for about 45 Minutes. After waiting for the tour to be over we then followed our guide to a professional tie dier and he joined us and first he let us pick which color we wanted. I chose light pink and Abby and mummy chose light blue. so then our guide told us to go pick out our ingredients, One of Abby's colours were yellow, so she went to there garden and dug up some Tumerick for the colour and then boiled it and dipped her string to keep on the pot. After that we used chopped up some sappan wood and it gave us a very nice pink. 

Okay, so after we made our tie dye scarves.  Mummy and Abby dipped there scarves in fermented die, which smells like Poo, and there was also a cockroach in mummy's pot, which looks like Poo. And for mine, well I collected leaves from a teak tree, so we boiled the leaves and made my light pink, but just before that we made our patterns and they turned out like this. 

Last day in Laos

Tomorrow we leave for Cambodia. We will only be visiting Siem Reap which is the home of the famous Angkor Wat temples. We have had a lot of down time in Laos and I am personally looking forward to a faster pace! The house we are staying in Luang Prabang has been perfect for us. Two bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen and living room. A good place to hang out in between activities during the day. The girls have made decent progress on their math too which has been good. 

We've been on the road for nearly 50 days! We are all still speaking to each other BUT I am really looking forward to interacting with some other adults. I've met a few folks along the side of the road etc, but always a casual chat. The kids need to connect with other kids their own age too. Thankfully Ema and Abby are face timing right now which should give her a bit of a lift! 

In about a week or so we will be reconnecting with a couple from Tazmania, Australia, who we met when backpacking through SE Asia in 1997. As luck would have it, they have two daughters our kids ages and we are reuniting in south Vietnam for a week or so during their winter break. We are all super excited and seems a little surreal that we are hooking up 18 years later! Abby and Robin are most interested in what Ashlee and Sophie will sound like!

Overall, doing well and on track with our budget. The kids have gotten used to working within a fixed daily budget for meals with a few slips here and there...Lots of questions as to why we don't operate like this at home, and will we run out of money etc. some funny conversations but good learning for the girls that it's not an endless gravy train. Especially when there's no income coming in!

News flash for my family and friends! I survived a craft afternoon. That's right. I managed to have not only the patience to tolerate tie dying a scarf BUT actually enjoyed myself! The girls and I spent an afternoon learning about silk worms and making our own natural dyes out of turmeric, teak leaves, fermented indigo leaves and then using these dyes for scarves which turned out pretty well! We also learned that silkworm poo is a thing. Silkworms which do actually produce the silk by spinning a cocoon, eat only mulberry leaves. Then they poo out the leaves and the Laotians make a tea out of it. Good for diabetes apparently. You can imagine Abby and Robins inappropriate reaction when they saw that on the menu of the cafe. Lol. Actually, mine wasn't much better! 

We spent this morning at a place called Big Brother Mouse. It's a not for profit centre to encourage literacy with Laotian children. They also have English conversation drop ins every day from 9-11 and 5-7 where tourists can stop by and help the locals practice their English. We all went by this morning and spent 2 hours talking to some really great people. Robin had the full attention of a young teenage boy who peppered her with questions and then taught her about the local Lao customs. I had about 5 young men between 17-22 with varying levels of proficiency, and we discussed all sorts of topics. They all came from families with 7-10 children! Mostly farming families. Craig and Abby joined a little later and they had a group of 4-5 men and one very chatty woman who goes twice a day, every day to help her English. Coincidentally, we recognized her and she us from the tie dye place. Luckily for Abby who was a bit shy, she did all the talking. Robin was in her element trying to teach her new friend. He wanted to know a bunch of new words of things you'd need for travel like passport, birth certificate, insurance, health card etc. Robin also taught him the term "drinking license" which is apparently a card you produce to prove you are of legal drinking age...?!?  No comment. 

Have really enjoyed our stay in Laos. The people are incredibly friendly, sincere and chill. Notwithstanding the zip line experience, I have felt safe and relaxed our entire stay. Beautiful country with fabulous people. 

Day 48: Kuang Si Waterfalls

Toui, the local that is the liaison for the Aussie owner of our AirBnB house, arranged a driver to take us to Kuang Si waterfalls today. We had briefly contemplated riding to and from the falls a few days ago, until we found out it was 33km each way. The return trip would have been tough on the kids. Boy were we smart! The drive out there is on relatively smooth pavement through a rolling, farm filled landscape, but it was generally uphill all the way. We were surprised our flatlander dutch friends Nadine and Paul had such an easy time with it :-).

The base of the falls before the entry gate is typical tourist attraction - a ton of shops and restaurants. We smartly loaded up on water and snacks. The park has a number of waterfall pools that you can swim in. We decided to do the "hard" part first, so we hiked up a steep hill trail and, after a number of grunts, groans, moans and a few WTFs, we reached the top. It was not what we were expecting - at the top was a really cool flooded forest that literally emptied itself over the edge of a cliff.

It was hot! We hiked down to the first of the pools, and it was beautiful. The water was azure and the air around the falls was cool and crisp. It was really one of the most beautiful natural things we'd seen.

No sooner had we arrived than the four of us were in the water, basking on a rock near a small waterfall. It was so refreshing. I'm not sure on the temperature, it might have been 24 Celsius, but it was so good.

Abby had talked about getting a "foot fish spa" in town, where you would dunk your feet in a small pool of water and fish would eat the dead skin (ew). Well, we were getting that for free! If you stopped moving, the little fish would nibble away at you (I never knew I had so much dead skin!) - it was a bizarre feeling.

We made our way down to the next pool. It was way bigger and deeper, and was starting to fill up with tourists. It was pretty funny to see three middle aged Koreans swimming with full clothes (water shoes, socks, pants, jackets, hats and sunglasses) - they talk of dressing respectfully in Buddhist countries, but this was way over the top :-).

The girls found a tree limb to jump off, so naturally they headed right for it!

After a couple of hours, the dead skin was gone and we were waterlogged. We headed out, passing a bear sanctuary on the way. The bears were quite cute and pretty active - they were all rescued from the area.

It was a math afternoon, followed by a bit of cards and a nice dinner. I think the gang is getting a bit restless, but we are still very much enjoying Luang Prabang.

Day 47: Hanging Out

Another sleepy day in Luang Prabang. We woke up late (read: Abby slept until 10:00am when Beth woke her up "I've been up for 4 hours and I'm going crazy!"). It's Sunday so... Well, we've kind of lost the meaning of days, so it really doesn't matter what day it is!

We walked around town quite a bit - strolling along the shaded street that runs next to the Mekong. It was very quiet there and we watched locals going about their business. We walked by a group of men offloading pigs from a boat to a truck, and those pigs were NOT happy - the girls were slightly traumatized, but I didn't hear anybody swearing off bacon.

We walked down a set of concrete stairs that led down to the river, and I was a little shocked to see a measuring stick going all the way to the top of the stairs that ended at 15 meters above the river - does the river really get that high? I will have to research.

After lunch, the girls were whisked away to do some tie dye craft, so I hunkered down trying to get my lengthy blog from yesterday posted. I've been asked how I get blogs posted virtually every day, and up until now, it's been very easy. There has been wifi at every hotel and virtually every restaurant we have been to in Southeast Asia. I've also bought a local SIM card and data access packages at every country except Japan. This has been very useful for GPS mapping and looking up reviews for restaurants and activities.

The last few days has been hard to get pictures to upload, as for blogs, it's "all or none" when it comes to uploading a file, whereas YouTube videos can upload slowly and incrementally so they usually eventually work.

But I digress, I went to a restaurant and finished a longish blog, then headed over to the national museum that also has this beautifully constructed temple on the grounds.

The museum itself, the former home of the king, does not allow photos but it was an interesting building with lots on display. They also had a garage with all of the former "royal" cars and it was funny to see it start out as the Citroen then move to huge clunky American cars right about the time the French lost influence in the area. I could just imagine the executives of the U.S. Car manufacturers lining up to do the junket to Southeast Asia to compete on which company could give the best car package to all of these kingdoms. Buddha I'm sure would not have approved....

After the museum, I found a perch on the side of a hill overlooking the night market street, and I half read, half people watched for an hour until I spotted the girls coming back in a Tuk Tuk. We strolled around the shops and streets for a while, when Beth started shouting in ernest "Guys! A-ha. I found them! Woo-hoo!" We rushed back thinking she'd found a trove of diamonds laying under a rock along the side of the street. Nope, even better - she'd found the precious flag pins we (she) have been looking for! We had found one in Vientiane, but I thought they looked crap as they were very old and I assured her we would find more. Well, I was right, but it took Beth's single minded focus over the last 10 days to finally find one (yes, she had already googled where to buy one online, lest her trip was sullied and incomplete by not finding one).... Ok, we were all happy, but three of us are trying not to show our pin-obsessions!

We grabbed a fruit drink (that is, if Robin's Oreo shake could be counted as a fruit drink!) and climbed up Mt Phosi to check out the stupa and view that rise above the old town and the Mekong River. Quite a view.... Now if I can only get the picture uploaded....

 

Day 46: Rice is Life

We have had a lot of questions about rice during our trip. Not just the kids asking... We all want to know - just how do they turn those picturesque fields of green into nice, delicious, multifunctional rice. In Southeast Asia they have an expression "Rice is Life", and we couldn't agree more.

In light of that, we signed up for the "living land" half day workshop. We were picked up at 8:00am and driven out of town about 20 minutes to a beautiful farm at the foot of a small range of hills. The farm is 20 acres and supports seven families with over fifty people as well as a bunch of students from hill tribe areas that have come to work, learn English and get an education.

There was a group of about sixteen or so tourists, so we split into two groups. Both guides had excellent English and definitely knew their way around the farm! So we began. Our guide walked us through the 13 step process from seed to mouth.

Step 1 - Seed selection: This was pretty interesting. They add salt to a volume of water, using an egg to test the salinity level of the water (once it stands up in the water, the water is salty enough). The rice grains are added to the water - the good seeds sink and the bad ones float. You skim off the bad seeds from the top and use them as feed for the animals (nothing is wasted!). To produce 4000kg of rice, you need just 30kg of seed. On this farm, they have enough water from the mountains to,do,two harvests a year - one they plant in July and harvest in October (that's the slower growing, higher yielding crop), then a winter crop planted in January and harvested in May (faster growing, lower yielding).

Step 2 - Germination - The good seeds are spread out on moist, muddy areas and left for a week to begin the germination process. Once small chutes pop out of the seeds, they are moved toms different area to let the chutes develop into a seedling. That takes up to 20-30 days. This step was one of the missing links for us - we have often seen farmers planting chutes, holding a big bunch in one hand and picking one out and planting them with the other hand.... But where did they get all the chutes! Ahh... City folk....

Step 3 - Preparing the Field - Have I mentioned that this workshop was hands on? Oh yes. In fact, that's spelled out in advance, so we found it pretty laughable that one person complained on Trip Advisor that "this place is a tourist trap, they trick you into doing all the labour for them while they sit around and watch!". Too funny, I'm sure we are not quite as effective at the job as the farmers are. So we all got our chance to plough the field behind a water buffalo. Walking through the cool, wet mud while being dragged by Suzuki (Rudolph was with the other group and was nowhere near as cute as our little Suzuki) was pretty fun. Admittedly this farm uses a guest Buffalo (power tractor) to plough their big feels nowadays, but seeing an animal driven plough like this is very common in SE Asia.

Step 4 - Planting - We all climbed in the mud, grabbed a handful of shoots and began planting them one at a time. The planting itself is very easy, but the bent over posture you are in all day would really make it back breaking work. I saw automated planting machines in Japan but only one in Vietnam. When labour is relatively cheap, it makes little sense to buy an expensive machine. Our guide tried to teach us a working song - it sounded nice when HE sang it :-)

Step 5 - Weeding - Abby's favourite step (and our lest favourite) was weeding. Twice during one crop the fields need to be weeded. Stepping between the chutes (that have multiplied into big bundles of chutes by now), you take the weeds, put them in the mud and bury them so they'll become future fertilizer for the fields. This farm has not used pesticides in over 10 years, though pests (snails, crabs, rats, snakes and birds) are a problem. Instead they use visual tools (like scarecrows and random hung up shirts) and spread tobacco and chillies to detract birds.

Step 6 - Harvesting - When ready for harvest (about 4 to 5 months after planting) the chutes turn pretty yellow, much like wheat. You grab the bundle of chutes and cut the bottoms with a sickle. When you have a couple of bunches, you take a long chute, tie the bunch then prop it up on some cut stocks to dry a little. Harvesting is pretty fun, but again, back breaking work. Not being an expert in the roots of communism, I can now see why the sickle was one of the two symbols of communist branding.

Step 6a - Washing Robin - We all had really muddy feet, up to the knees, but Robin for some reason had mud from head to toe. One of the elder farmers got s real kick out of this muddy city/farm girl and helped her get a little cleaner.

Step 7 - Thrashing - The bundles of rice are grabbed with a tool that looks like a pair of nunchaku - two short wooden poles with a small rope joining one set of ends. You smash the bundle against a wooden sloped plank and voila - out pops the rice seed on the ground. It was quite the feeling to relieve all of the chutes of their precious seed. The chutes are not wasted (nothing is!) as they are used for animal feed, growing mushrooms and making rice wine. Getting all of the rice seeds off the rice bundles on a twenty acre farm like this takes about one month and yields four thousand kilograms of rice seed.

Step 8 - Winnowing - Before getting ready to transport the seed back to the main farm (we are still out in the field doing some processing in order to save weight before transportation), we use a large bamboo fans to winnow the seeds from the small bits of husk and dead seed. When you use the fan, the dead, unwanted stuff just flies out of the pile of seed we've collected.

Step 9 - Transport - Like the old moving markets in Hanoi, we set up a balance on our shoulders carrying two baskets of seed with 20kg in each basket! Not very light. We are finally ready to see how we get the little white rice grains that we know and love.

Step 10 - Removing the Husk - The way to remove the light brown husk from the white rice kernel is nude was a little surprising, and our guide told us that there are many ways of doing this. We used a giant morter and pestle (controlled with leg power!) to gently smash a pile of the seeds. Sure enough, within minutes, you could see the pile inside starting to turn white. This is a process where you would take rice out, put more seed in, sift, take some out, put more in.... A kind of Dante's inferno never-ending task that Beth and I were both thinking could be used for a great punishment task....

Step 11 - Sifting - Now we're getting somewhere. A woman from the farm demonstrated how to use a flat bamboo sifter to get rid of unwanted husks and seeds that were not yet separated. After two minutes she grabs a bowl, flips the sifter in the air and the bowl magically fills with pure white rice! Apparently every woman needs to get good at sifting rice, as it is one of the factors the men use when evaluating a good mate! I had Beth try the sifter and....well... we're already married.

 

Step 12 - Preparing the Rice - Getting hungry! We were told of the importance of soaking the rice (the rice we were making was sticky rice so very important). It should be soaked for at least three hours. Luckily our rice was already cooking! Interestingly, they don't dispose of the water they soak the rice in, they use it for shampoo!

Step 13 - Cooking - This sticky rice was simply steamed. It was placed in a bamboo sieve, covered and placed over an open fire with a pot of boiling water. Thirty minutes and it would be ready to eat!

What a morning. We were impressed at how efficient every step seemed to be and it,doesn't seem like you would get bored, as the girls asked if people specialized at one task or another and they don't - everybody does every job depending on what's needed. It seems like there would be a lot of downtime between some of the steps above, but there are always things to do, which we learned as we waited for our rice to cook.

Grinding Rice Flour - We tried our hand at making rice flour. We used a wooden mechanism hooked up to two grinding rocks. The flour would take a lot of refinement as it took a bunch of passes to make a very fine grain flour. The flour is used to make rice noodles, rice paper, yeast for rice wine and many more things.

Pressing Sugar Cane - We used a one hundred year old, carved hardwood press to make sugar cane juice from pressing sugarcane stalks over and over. We tried the juice.... Hmmmm good. Not overly sweet yet delicious.

Welding - We used a bamboo gadget that fed air to a fire pit like a forge and watch as the blacksmith used pieces of rebar to make a sickle and a substitute buckle for a wooden case... Pretty cool that they can do so much with very little.

Bamboo weaving - we watched, mostly, as one of the older guys took a bamboo chute and made all kinds of crafts and kitchen implements.

We were ready to eat! They served us up a whole wack of rice and rice flour products, and we had rice wine and Jaew Bong (a very tasty chilli dipping paste) to round out the snack.
The experience was great - we learned a ton, answered a lot of the kids past and future questions about rice(!) and met a bunch of nice people on the way. No rice, no life indeed.

The village in Mekong river

Today we toke a slow river boat down the Mekong river. About half way to where we we're getting of to stay for the night, about half way we stop to take a 20 minute break at this little village where there were happy little children that were very poor but very happy, a lot of rich or very weathy kids are a lot of time spoiled and sad or mad and a lot of the very poor children are very greatful and very happy with what they've got, and I admire that a lot. After walking 5 minutes in the village we saw these little girls about 6 to 7 years old, they nada hola hop and they insisted thay I give it a go

So here's me 

Oh dear 

Just to mention that was very embarrassing 

Well bye now

...!!!...

Day 45: Chilling in LP

Nothing on tap today, which is just fine. Beth woke up early (she's really going octagenrian on us with her sleep and awake times) and got us some baguettes, cheese, yogurt and peanut butter - it was well received. Of any meal that we miss having at home, it's breakfast - hands down. The Tyndalls are big breakfast fans, and getting some nice whole wheat bread, coffee with milk (for Beth) and peanut butter has been sorely missed. Hell, throw in a Venti Skim No Foam Chai and now we'd have us some breakfast. Well, no Starbucks in Laos, but today we had a pretty good breakfast - thanks for getting up early Grannie!

Late morning, we took a different route to town, this time along the side of the bicycle and scooter only bridge.

We walked around town checking out some of the more famous "Wats" or Buddhist temples. In general, they are beautifully kept here, with lush, well manicured gardens and grounds.

For the main temple in town, the girls had to cover up a bit out of respect for the temple.

This little city has some really nice views. Here, at the confluence of the smaller Nam Khan river and the mighty Mekong River.

We had a really nice lunch. I had the nicest Pho Bo I'd had since our second trip to Hanoi - I actually miss the Vietnamese food more than I thought I would. It seems like this town is chalk full of nice restaurants at fairly reasonable prices (though in general more expensive than smaller towns). I would really compare Luang Prabang to Hoi An in Vietnam - really relaxed, picturesque with a ton to see and do.

In the afternoon, the Bickersons were up to their old tricks, running a spa in their bedroom. After that, Abby prepared a really nice pasta dinner (with menu and all!) and we finished the night off with a few dozen rounds of cards.

Tomorrow morning we do our rice farming experience, so we are looking forward to learning about, and hopefully eating, our favourite grain!

 

Markets of Laos

Yesterday, in Luang Prabang, we visited a small market on the one Main Street there was in the town. I love markets, and there are so many different kinds of markets. There are tourist markets, which sell things like paintings, souvenirs, bags, shirts, the usual. There are food markets, which obviously sell food. There are moving markets, which are ladies carrying a bamboo stick with two baskets on either side of the stick, usually filled with fruit or even nuts. They are called moving markets because, well, they move! There are wet markets, which are called wet markets, because of the fresh "wet" produce (veggies, fruit and meat), that they sell. There are frog markets, which are called that because they are illegal, so when the police come they have to pack up and quickly "jump" like a frog into their houses. Other types of markets are spice markets, pearl markets, gold fish markets, jade markets, ladies markets, flower markets, and so many more markets. You could pretty much name any item, and they would probably have a market for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a sofa market! I love markets in Laos, (and markets everywhere else too), because they are so coulorful. And unlike Vietnam, the sellers aren't very enterprising. They're not so in-your-face and don't really care if you buy the product or not. In some ways that can be bad or good. There are also many nice things that are displayed in the markets, like beautiful oil paintings, and little hand made bags. Coulorful markets really intrigue me, but if you ever go to a market in Asia (or pretty much everywhere), don't forget to bargain!

Impressions of Laos

Laos is kind of similar to Vietnam in some ways. They're both French influenced and the food is very similar. Laos food is excellent! Some main dishes are lapp, ( cold or hot meat "salad"), stir fries, noodle dishes, rice dishes, etc. As you can see, Laos food is very similar to Vietnamese food. Laos is a pretty quite place in general (the busiest place would be the capital city, Vientiane, but even that's not as busy as, say, Tokyo or New York City), and instead of lots of big cities, there are many small sleepy villages and towns. For some, sleepy towns are nice because they don't like the buzz of big cities, but I prefer big, busy cities. I also love the French influence here. When you walk down a street, there are all these cute little cafés and coffee shops, and the buildings look like European style buildings. I would never have thought that a country in Southeast Asia would have such a French influence and look so European. I really like the place in Laos were staying in right now, Luang Prabang. It's a very quite town, but the one Main Street is nice, and has lots of nice restaurants, boutiques, souvenir shops, and even a market. Laos is kind of interesting in the way that you can be sitting in a café sipping coffee in the capital, Vientiane, and the next day you could be zip lining through lush green mountains 150 metres above the ground. I really like Laos so far.

Day 44: Floating to Luang Prabang

What a view from the hotel in the morning. I woke up at about 5:30am and just stared at the activity on the river. Pak Beng is definitely a "transit town". The locals seem to treat most people like they'll never see them again, a kind of one-night-stand service attitude. Oh well, I guess it's true - we won't be back.

We took the opportunity to get some math homework done. It's not exactly like pulling teeth to get them started, but once they get started, they each have different patterns. Abby tends to want to plot through the units, and she did well today...

Robin, shall we say, takes her time, though she did manage to get through a unit or two today.

In fact, Robin got much more lip syncing done than Math today....

The food was really good on the boat, but Beth and I agreed that we could use a change of pace tonight.

In the afternoon, Robin had a bit of a fever, so she laid down and actually slept for two hours.

On the way to Luang Prabang, we into some familiar looking territory - large limestone karsts that we'd seen in Ha Long Bay and Phong Nha National Park in Vietnam. Sure enough, we docked and were to get out and check out the Pak Ou Caves, a set of two caves that are right on the river (ie only accessible by boat) and that are an important Buddhist monument.

Beth and Robin stayed back, as she was still sleeping. They didn't miss much. The upper cave was a steep walk up a few hundred steps, to a small, dirty, dark cave.

The cave was flanked by a pretty odd, pregnant, simian style Buddha. Really weird.

The lower cave was a little more interesting.

We arrived without incident in Luang Prabang without incident. A fantastic boat trip and a very relaxed way to travel south in Laos. Beth had actually stumbled upon a report right before we left (ahh... Google) about a UK woman who had drowned in an accident taking our slow boat back in April. Day two for her was much more relaxed. As her brother Brian had pointed out, a guy drowned recently taking the Toronto Harbour boat cruise...which either reassured her, or guaranteed that we will never be on the harbour cruise! :-)

We got to our house shortly after. We had decided that Luang Prabang would be a nice place to chill out for a few days, so we've rented a house for six night on AirBnB from a retired Aussie that uses the house as a base to travel around Southeast Asia every year.

No sooner had we arrived then Abby had "searched up" a nearby wood oven restaurant, that turned out to be owned and operated by a guy from Etobicoke - how weird is that? The food was fantastic and I'm sure we will be back.

We got just a taste of Luang Prabang today, but so far it looks sleepy and touristy - which is just fine for us right now. The main tourist strip is nicely laid out and as soon as we got on the street, we ran into Paul and Nadine who are leaving LP tomorrow for a 6 day, 500km bike trip around Laos - very cool.

The Norseman Project

Floating down the Mekong River on day 2 of this beautiful and relaxing trip (except for the part where I had to help Robin with math) and am reflecting on the kids observations yesterday about the village children. 

It immediately struck them that the kids were happy. And they had no material possessions. No shoes. No technology. But they were playing, and laughing and smiling. So what do they have that makes them so happy? There are only 50 people who lived in the village.  (As an aside, the men are allowed multiple wives so we know why they are happy). I would have to think it's the strength of their relationships. Their community. While we don't live in a village at home, I am grateful for the community we have landed ourselves in. Not just neighbours but true friends. 

That's my thought of the day!

Day 43: Mekong Dream

I have been waiting for this one for a long time. We booked a slow boat down the Mekong River with the Nagi - a tourist specific boat that has a few more creature comforts and space than the cheaper public boat option.

There's something about being on a riverboat that really drives home the point that David Wilcox was singing about. I know of no better mode of transportation experience for me than to take in the countryside as we meander down a river in a boat. And this boat seemed ideal (though Beth had her worries, but I will get into that in a later post!) - big, comfortable reappropriated minivan seats, spacious and friendly crew to boot.

The river was beautiful. There were ragged limestone teeth throughout, creating large eddies and some pretty strong currents. The pilot, an older guy who had been driving the Nagi for 9 years, would steer from the front while the rudder and engine were about 30 to 40 meters back. It did not look like an easy job to control the boat, because we were travelling with the river at its low point (some 5-8 meters below the high point at the end of the rainy season) he had to draw on years of experience and of course his depth guage, gps and maps to steer us safely down towards Pak Beng, our halfway stop for the night.

Right before lunch me stopped at a local village and had a walk around. It was pretty reminiscent of visiting hill tribes in Thailand and Myanmar in the past - there was poverty for sure by our standards, but a lot of happy kids and seemingly well fed villagers. This village had about 50 people and primarily lived off farming and a little fishing. It was interesting to see our kids reactions - they could see both sides of the poverty and happiness situation. I think if you were healthy, it would be a fine place to grow up if you didn't know much about the outside world. But if you were sick or had special needs, it would be a different story for sure.

Abby felt very hot during our walk so Beth and her walked back to the boat. Robin found some kids to entertain with her inferior hula hooping skills! On our way out, a local man came out of the fields with a pig that was screaming at the top of his lungs. Our guide explained that there was a family with a sick member and they would be making a pork soup to help get him or her better tonight. The pig clearly knew where he was headed and was not happy. Robin did not seem too good with the situation.

Back on the boat we had lunch, sticking to mostly vegetarian, though we did have some tasty river fish that I assume didn't scream when perishing and perhaps had died of old age... Gulp... Kept thinking of that pig.

We gave Abby some meds - she was running a bit of a fever, though I was more worried about Beth administering so many temperature readings from the ear thermometer. With all the readings we could create a very detailed patient chart. Her fever came down in short order and she was back to herself in a couple of hours (maybe she was trying to get out of math homework... No, wrong kid). Beth bounced back shortly after and was back in smiling mode. It's really hard to get down on this amazing little trip.

We are at the "best" hotel in Pak Beng, the Mekong Riverside Lodge. It has a fantastic review, though the rooms are not air conditioned and thus have mosquito nets. It hasn't seemed very buggy here so I'm not too worried, but it will probably be a hot night!