Day 2: Laos and how to live it

Day started too early and too painful. Not sure if it was the Laos whisky, the soft pillows, the hard bed, the dehydration of flying, the change of routine, but I was awake before 5am with a headache that has buzzed me all day.

Hotel breakfast was surprisingly pretty good: fruit, chicken noodle soup, good bread, and strong coffee from an italian stove press. From there we took a wander over to the big Wat (Wat Xiengthong) which was pretty, full of shiny things and spiky trees. Then it was a stroll along the Mekong, which is certainly a big arse powerful river that puts any Australian creeks to shame. All along our stretch were touts offering boat rides, but that wasn’t really the plan for the day. Still, these guys have to be among the least pushy touts, and easily took no for an answer.

We stopped at a French cafe for coffee and a snack: cafe latte for me (with a huge layer of foam that any barista student would be proud of) and a pain au chocolat for me, french fries for L. The pain was good, not the most fresh but the filling was decent, bitter dark chocolate.

We followed up with our first massage of the trip, again pretty good with a couple of minor issues (the robe supplied wasn’t really made for a largish person, and next door are building something noisily). I could have used a bit more attention to my neck and back, but my legs and arms feel good.

After a bit of a break back at the hotel, it was off to wander again. We found the “supermarket”, a crazily eclectic department store that has real food, snack food, booze, clothes, accessories, and other random stuff. Picked up a bottle of “whisky” for $2 — it is “Blended and bottled by an expert from Australia”. There were a few with a similar phrase, including two that looked similar to Johnny Walker Red and Black — at first I read the label as being whisky from Australia, but then had a closer look. I haven’t tasted it yet, I don’t want to take the chance it’ll spoil the memory of a good dinner.

We stopped for a snack at a little roadside barbeque place: grab a bowl, pick some food on a stick, and they cook it for you. Good choices too, stringy mushrooms wrapped in bacon, other mushrooms, eggplant, sausages, weird seafood things, random greens. Our eight sticks cost $3, and were very tasty.

We also conquered the bamboo bridge, which is as it says on the tin, a 50-60m bridge across the Nam Khan River, made almost completely of bamboo. It’s a temporary thing, it stays up for about 6 months of the year, before it gets taken down when the river floods, and then gets rebuilt. It’s the sort of structure that fortunately didn’t have any horrible little children rocking it while we crossed.

Dinner was at the other Bamboo Tree restaurant: more wonderful river weed, firey dried chillies, Mekong catfish and sticky rice — I had a go at eating local style, with my hands. I did okay. Also tried regular BeerLao, it’s pretty decent, not over hopped, cool and refreshing.

Tomorrow is a cooking class, I’m expecting to spend a lot of time slicing lemongrass.