days 5-6
luang prabang is like everyone says, very nice. a lot nicer than vientiane, although there are probably more things to do in vientiane and a lot less tourists.we found a good place to stay away from the main bit of town, across the nam khan.
after spending a day getting our bearings and having massages we went on a cooking course. they took us to market first to give us a tour of how the market works and what specialty ingredients they use in lao.
i cant even remember what he said they were.
everything was obviously pretty damn fresh there
instead of cow, buffalo is the most popular red meat in lao. however they dont slaughter animals until theyre quite old (and no longer fit for work) so the meat is quite tough. these were some buffalo skewers. the black sauce to the left of it was buffalo bile. it was actually quite tasty but i wasnt into how chewy it was.
frogs and eels
that thing lying on its own was a rat or mouse. apparently its used in stew
the big black stuff is a bulk bag of the before mentioned mekong weed.
this one was pretty crazy... the brown eggs are just plain normal eggs.. the pink ones are the century eggs... but the white ones were a different kettle of fish. they usually have a number stamped on them, if not it means they are number 1. these are all cooked eggs but stage 1 has a chicken foetus inside. stage 2 has a slightly bigger foetus, going up to 6 which has a baby chick.
he opened one up for everyone to taste (just a stage 1). i didnt try it but apparently just tastes like a normal egg. the foetus means that the yolk is much bigger, so these eggs are usually used for a heavy blast of protein.
all the butchers just have meat out in the open.. everything is so fresh though that it seems that there isnt too much risk. the place had a bit of a pong but not too horrible.
all these fillets looked incredible
then we got taken out to to this country cooking school, it was pretty nice out there.
this house was pretty amazing
that night we went to the night market, pretty much just a big tourist thing but like a little oasis amongst the beerlao tshirts we found this amazing woman that made little stuffed dolls. we bought a bunch of them and kept going back for more. i think each one cost like $4 or something.
she was pretty incredible.
