Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang was beautiful and chilled - exactly what we needed after the craziness that was Vietnam.  We arrived at My Dream Boutique Resort on Friday 17th, with the plan to stay the entire week.  Bliss!



For the first few days we just got ourselves acquainted with the area (ok, and the pool) and then at night we'd hop into town to check out the night markets of local handicrafts and partake in some bbq.

Monday saw me heading to Ock Pop Tok for a workshop in the art of natural silk dyeing and weaving.  It was extremely interesting to learn how each colour was made with barks, roots, leaves and stems.

I tried my hand at making yellow, orange and red.

Then it was time to hit the loom.

It was a little tricky at times but my teachers were fantastic and I loved every second. Definitely worth doing!

Tuesday saw us kayaking down the river...

... and visiting the Buddha caves.

Craig also took the opportunity to bathe and ride an elephant ...

... and try the local rice whisky, known as lao lao.

After all that activity we took the chance to relax on Wednesday (it's tough, I know), before an awesome cooking class with Chai of Tamarind on Thursday.

We wrapped fish in banana leaves...

... stuffed chicken and herbs into lemongrass ...

... made a buffalo salad, complete with tripe and buffalo bile ...

... as well as steamed two types of rice - sticky white for the mains and purple for a pudding-ish desert.

It was an absolute feast and, as we were the only two in the class that day, we got to pig out. Yum!

So... who wants to come to a dinner party when we get home? Promise to leave out the tripe and bile! ;)

All in all, Luang Prabang was awesome. We both loved every second and would love another opportunity to further explore Laos. The people are extremely friendly and chilled out and really helped make our stay enjoyable. If you're interested you can find a few more pics of our adventures in the Photos tab, above.

Our last week is being spent in Cambodia, before we fly home this Friday (ahh!). A blog post on what we've been up to in Siem Reap will come soon (sorry, technology has become a little crappy since leaving Vietnam so we've slackened off) but until then I'll leave you with a little something that we found amusing on our recent Lao Airways flight.

And, believe it or not, all that money they save on life jackets means they can offer the beer for FREE. Winner! ;)

E.