Kate and I made it to the Hanoi airport and got on a little jumper plane to Luang Prabang, Laos! We were both sad to be leaving Vietnam but excited to explore Laos. I knew the least about Laos and did not know what to expect.
We got our VISAs and went through immigration quickly and then jumped into a taxi and headed to our guesthouse. When we got to Liberty Guesthouse, they didn't have our double room that we usually stay in but two singles. Kate and I both felt so weird being separated after two and a half weeks straight with each other 24/7, but the place was really nice and we were thankful for the A/C! It was way hotter in Laos than Vietnam, didn't really miss it...
We headed out for lunch and to rehydrate. I quickly realized that I forgot my camera in the taxi! I pulled it out to take some pictures of the drive and must have left it. We tried to call the airport but couldn't find a right number, and then no one would pick up. We decided to go back in the morning and check if someone had brought it back, since it was so late.
We had traditional chicken Laab for dinner. It is minced chicken with spices, herbs and sticky rice. Delicious! Then, we went night market shopping! We both in the mood to spend money and we were definitely able to do so at the huge market running down the center of the city. Kate and I were in heaven.
The next day, Kate and I went to a little cafe called Joma. I had a BAGEL! It was probably the best bagel I have ever tasted. Dang I missed bread.
I couldn't really enjoy myself because I was worried about my camera and mad at myself for having left it behind. If I didn't get it back I would have lost basically all of my pictures from Vietnam. So, Kate and I made a deal with a tuk-tuk to drive us there and back. I had my ticket from the taxi service, thankfully, so they called the driver and he said he found it under my seat and would bring it by today!!! The driver brought it back right to our guesthouse with this picture on it
Haha so nice and so cute! It really put us in a good mood for Laos and we instantly felt more relaxed that this man was so nice! It felt like Thailand.
Kate and I decided to do some exploring around the city. We went to a Wat that had murals from the 1800s. Then we walked up 315 steps to a Wat on a hill overlooking the city. We also saw the Buddha's imprint of his foot and a great view of the Mekong River.
Luang Prabang
Tham Pu Si Wat
Buddha's footprint
After a long day in the sun we got some Indian food for lunch and then headed to a spa! I got a traditional Laotian massage. It was very similar to a Thai massage and very relaxing!
Kate and I also had all of our laundry done, we were down to the bare minimum after two weeks of nonstop travel!
We took a quick nap back at our guesthouse and then headed back out for dinner and more night market shopping! Laos was also colonized by the French so there are many French influences. One main one is the baguette! They have delicious sandwiches and many stalls in the street with a menu of various items to put on your sandwich. We both tried many different variations and they were all delicious!
The next day Kate and I got up early and bartered with a yuk-tuk driver to drive us to the Kwang Si Waterfall. It was the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen! A monk was standing under the falls when we got there and it was a beautiful scene to watch. Then we followed the river and saw the cascading steppes of the falls, it was really beautiful.
We found a swimming area and waded in for a bit. The ground was super squishy and slimy but it was refreshing on such a hot day.
We also found a Sun Bear Preservation area! It was feeding time and the bears were all out foraging for their hidden food. It was really cool and interesting to learn more about the Sun Bears. They are being poached all over South East Asia and are becoming endangered. :-(
We got more sandwiches for dinner and ate them by the river with Lao style coffee! yum.
Joma had become our favorite place in South East Asia. We went every morning for breakfast and sometimes back for lunch or an after dinner snack. It was really nice to have some Western food, good coffee, and comfortable chairs to read, write and hang out in. One day, we stayed there for hours, ordering more and more food and just relaxing and talking. It was really great and just what we needed to reenergize.
We stopped at the National Museum of Laos. It used to be the Palace for the King and Queen of Laos but was later converted into a museum. The palace was very understated and nothing like the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It had many gifts from all over the world, it was interesting to see what countries gave what. Many Asian countries gave elaborate tea sets, while America gave fragments of the moon. Thanks, Nixon.
The grossest thing happened. I woke up at 2:30am one morning with a weird fluttering in my ear...THERE WAS A BUG IN MY EAR. I started freaking out! Of course, I was alone and couldn't wake up Kate to freak out with me so I tried getting it out with a q-tip. That didn't work. I was starting to understand how some people go crazy...I looked online for ways to get it out and many of them required extra tools, water or oil, but then I found one about putting your head under the sink. I immediately ran to the bathroom and stuck my head under the sink for a good minute before stopping. It was gone! Needless to say, I wore headphones and my hood over my head the rest of the time.
The next day we woke up and were picked up at our guesthouse so we could do the Rice Experience! We were both really excited about this because we lived next to rice paddies all year and ate rice all three meals for a year so it was oddly close to our hearts!
They brought us to the Living Land Farm where we were given the awesome pointy hats and waited for the other three people to arrive.
We started talking to the creator of the program, Laut Lee, about why he started it and all about the Farm. He is 28, Hmong, and from the mountains of Laos. His parents and generations before that all lived without electricity, running water (they collected rain water), no education, and Laut Lee wanted more. He went to Luang Prabang University, graduated and became a teacher in town. But, his family needed him on the farm. "The rice was calling him back," he said. He started a garden that he sells to hotels in the city. One day, guests wanted to come out and see the farm so he said yes of course! Then he started developing The Rice Experience and in August 2011, it opened for business.
When our group arrived, one girl originally from Santa Cruz and two from Argentina, we began!
We learned there are 14 steps that go into rice production.
Step 1. We hiked our pants up and stepped knee deep into mud! It was crazy fun! We needed to plow with the farm's water buffalo, Susan. She has nine children, and helps plow most of the fields. So, we jumped in the field of mud and shouted commands at Susan as we softened the ground and sloshed all over.
Step 2: We took individual stalks and placed them hands width apart throughout the paddy.
Step 3: We picked weeds from other paddies and composted them within the paddy. They were really big on recycling at the farm!
Super dirty!
Step 4: Once the rice has grown over three months, been watered for five days, drought for five days, watered for ten days, drought for ten days, then the stalks are all grown and ready to be cut down! We got our sickles and cut about two stalks and then created a bundle out of some of the extra straw.
washing off
We learned how they make the sickles! You heat the fire by pumping your own upright bellow.
Then, you take the sickle and a hammer and start hounding away, shaping it and rounding it.
There was also a bamboo station, where we watched him split the bamboo into very thin pieces and be used for a wide variety of things!
We got to try it too!
Back to growing rice!
Step 5: This is when you get the grains off of the stalk. You take a bunch of stalks in a pair of nungchuck looking things, take it over your head and then bring it down hard on the ground so they separate.
You then take club-looking things and beat the stalks again to get any spare grains to fall off. It was a great way to get your aggression out!
Step 6: Now you need to separate the grains from the excess straw pieces. So we took these big tennis racquet looking things and whipped them over the pile to blow the straw away from the grain.
Step 7: Then, you carry the grains in from the field in a special contraption where you hold the straps on your forehead. He only put a couple of handfuls in the basket and that was heavy enough! I can't imagine when it is completely full!
Step 8: After carrying it in, you need to crack the white rice part out of its shell. We put it in this huge mortar and pestle machine that cracks large amounts at once.
The owner and our guide, Laut Lee!
Step 9: Take everything out of the bowl and put it into a sifter like thing. Throw it up to separate the rice from the shells.
Step 10: Put the rice in water to soak overnight, if in a hurry put in warm water for 3 hours. You should be able to break the rice in your hands.
Step 11: If you want to make rice paper for spring rolls or rice flower, you put it in a different contraption after Step 9. It grinds it down into a fine powder and allows you to do so many things with it.
Step 12: After Step 10, cook it, put rice in clay pot over fire pit with water to become sticky.
Step 13: Put rice in bamboo basket to help the stickiness and cool it!
Step 14: Enjoy!
We also made sugar cane juice! They had this huge contraption where two people pushed bamboo sticks around and around while they put sugar cane in between and we squeezed the juice out. It was really cool and super tasty!
Everything is made of rice! Delish!
It was such a great experience and we definitely agreed with their philosophy, Rice is Life!
The next day we took a tuk tuk to the Pakou Caves. It is one of the most treasured religious symbols in Luang Prabang where thousands of Buddha statues have been left by thousands of visitors and worshippers. There is a story that one pilgrim came to the caves many years ago and left a Buddha on his journey. It turned into a pilgrimage journey for people and even the Laotian King makes the journey every year on New Years. It was an hour drive out and then a boat ride across the Mekong to the caves. It was incredibly beautiful riding the Mekong with mountains surrounding us.
The steps to get to the Buddhas.
Buddhas!
Buddhas in every form, of every shape and size in the lower caves
My Buddha!
We had to walk up more stairs to get to the upper caves. These were very dark and bigger but it was extremely cool to see the shrines people had built.
There were gold leaf Buddhas on the walls! It felt very Indiana Jones in these caves!
Indiana Kate! We climbed down a little sweatier and hotter but overall glad we had made the pilgrimage out to see the Buddhas.
We decided to take the slow boat down the Mekong River back to Thailand. We heard from multiple people that this was the way to do it and we wouldn't regret it so we were excited but nervous about what to expect! We got up early, packed out huge backpacks and headed for one last delicious breakfast from Joma. Then we got a tuk tuk to take us to the docks and got seats sitting behind some girls we knew from a neighboring province, Nan! Small world! Their names are Dana and Hannah. We chatted about our experiences and future plans and Kate and I both felt better to have friends on this long trip! The slow boat left at 9am and we were on our way! Cruising through the Mekong, surrounded by mountains, beautiful greenery, fisherman, other boats passing by, it's really quite a journey. It did get pretty hot between 1 and 4 but other than that I was super comfy! The seats all look like they have been stolen out ofa van, they recline and if you lean to much, they move!
It took us 9 1/2 hours to get to the first pit stop, Pakbeng. The road up from the boat was very steep and rocky, I was a little nervous I would fall backwards with my backpack a couple times! Once we make it to the top we set off looking for a place to stay. This town is basically made for tourists to stay there for one night, so we were being hounded on all sides from people to stay at their guesthouse or eat at their restaurant. We found a place that was relatively cheap with a fan and really good wifi and decided to go for it! As we were lying under the fan sweating our asses off the power in the whole town shut off! It was crazy! I have never seen such pitch black as this! I think a generator was powering the whole town and once those pesky farangs came in with all of their fancy electronics, it sucked up all the power. The power kept flickering on and off so we decided to go get a bite to eat. We took showers and then went to sleep as the power went off and on all night!
The next day we were a little later getting on the boat. We were ready at 7:30 and it wasn't supposed to leave until 9, so we decided to get coffee and wait a little longer. BIG MISTAKE. We got down to the boat and it was almost completely full! The only seats left were in the back next to the motor sitting sideways. So, it was really loud (we couldn't really listen to music) and instead of looking out the window we were looking at luggage and people and a little scenery. Also, every time I try to stretch my legs out, people walk by to go to the bathroom or buy snacks so we are scrunched up in little balls. Haha I was so complainy and bratty but I had such a relaxing beautiful day yesterday and didn't want to end our wonderful days in Laos this way :-( I was mostly just mad at myself for not trusting my gut and going to get seats early. Ugh.
Nine hours later and not a moment too soon we made it to the border of Thailand! It was too late to cross over so we found a guesthouse near the border with some other farangs from the boat and then called it a night!
The next morning, we headed to the border! We had to "check out" of Laos before getting a ferry across to Chiang Khon, Thailand. So we all get into a little boat to cross over the Mekong to Thailand and our last image of Laos is of two guys skinning a rigor mortis cow in the Mekong. Gross.
Laos was quite a great adventure! It felt similar to Thailand which felt like a relief after Vietnam. Even the way they say "hello," "Sabaidee," is the way we say "I am good" in Thai! The people were so friendly and nice and the country was so beautiful and green! I would definitely go back!
Now on to Songkran in Chiang Mai!
