December 29^th – class time

We returned to the school, and found that Chandra wasn’t in the kitchen today; Linda would be taking the class. I had no complaints, as her English proved to be very competent, and her teaching skills quite good. Likewise, whereas Chandra is from the South, she’d grown up in Luang Prabang (and had studied to be an accountant). She’s been with Tum Tum Cheng since it opened in 2001.

As we sat down at the concrete table, the chill removed by cushions of big-eyed puppies (c’mon! This is a town with a main street that sounds like “saccharine”!) rice cakes were ready for us, with a tamarind paste to give them a good, sour contrast. These were just like the ones we’d seen drying outside the day before. As Linda tells us, these are the leftovers – uneaten sticky rice (khao niao) which is touched up with salt, and then worked into patties and left to dry in the sun for a day or two. This will dessicate them to the point where they will crisp when deep fried, otherwise the khao niao will never fry properly.

Linda then gave us a bit of a talk on the table manners of the Lao. Again, this is very much from the book.

In general, being old, I win out. In Laos, it is always eldest first, so, in this crowd at least, I’m getting mine before anyone else. Scud goes last. Serving drinks is a little different. The server takes the first shot, not letting the cup touch his lips. Then the eldest is served next. Everyone sits on the floor, the food being served (as in the North of Thailand) on a large bamboo tray, food taken by hand – except for a spoon for the soups – using balls of sticky rice to mop things up. Niceties out of the way, we move on to the actual business of making food. For a Lao meal, the major effort is the prep, the meez. This will take up two to four hours of your day before the actual 20 to 30 minutes of cooking. And that 20 to 30 minutes is important, as the food is meant to be eaten very fresh. For the salads, the dressing will change taste in ten minutes, so it’s important that the food come quickly to the table. This demand for freshness requires that a Lao kitchen will have a large work crew, with the aim being to bring all the dishes on the table at the same time.

For the restaurants, about 60% of the food is coming direct from the gardens (farms). If this was a home-cooked meal, that would be 60 to 70% from the jungle. I’d noticed this before when in Laos, the housewives checking anything green on the way home, and stripping the bushes when they find something with the right smell and taste.

The restaurants do tend to tone things down a bit. A pity, as I see nothing wrong with hot and bitter (I’ll make no wife jokes, I swear). For heat, there’s the spicey wood I’d mentioned before, as well as the liberal selection of chili peppers that one expects. And then the peppers, both peppercorns and the Szechuan pepper. This this is the divide in Lao cooking; hot and cool, the two balancing the dishes.

The three requirements, the Lao trinity, are galangal, lemon grass, and kaffir lime leaves. The cuisine will change as you move around the country, but these three will remain constant.

The galangal is either jullienned for eating, or else cut thick lengthwise for flavouring. The lemon grass is bottomed and thin sliced up through the white for eating and flavour, and then tamped and rough cut for flavouring and scent through the greens (but not eaten). And the lime leaves can be either dropped in whole for general flavours, or else julienned by removing from the central stem and then rolled and sliced thin, this later approach for when they’re too be eaten.

As you look around the region you see the Vietnamese not fitting into this schema at all (which makes sense considering the migration routes, but that’s another story); Cambodia being similar, but using a lot more fish sauce; the Thai are schizophrenic, with a distinct split between the North (Lanna) and Northeast(Isaan), and what the Lao call the South, but what is really central Thailand. I suppose this is pretty close to the Western Canadian concept of Ontario as the East. The real South of Thailand, down the peninsula, isn’t touched upon at all, which makes sense again on ethnic grounds.

A bit of history. Lanna and the Northern cities of Chiang Mai, Chiang Saen, Lampun, et al, are tightly linked through royal ties and a shared history, so you see food culture traveling between the two regions quite easily. Isaan is a more direct linkage, with the bulk of the Lao population being moved into the Thai orbit with the destruction of the Lan Xan Kingdom in 1828. At the present time (as is often pointed out) there are more Lao speakers in Thailand than in Laos. And to this day they’d been providing most of the cheap labour, although they’re now being displaced by Burmese and Khmer as Thai standards of living creep higher.

If there’s a national dish in Laos, it’s tam mahaan, (som tam in Thai) - Papaya salad. But the Lao will also do this with cucumbers – skin on – as an alternative to the papaya. Or you could use carrots, cabbage, and/or long beans. The long beans are taken raw or cooked, in contrast to the normal green beans always taken cooked. I can bear witness to the wide variety of this dish. In Udorn back in the 90’s the place across the street from our hotel had over a dozen versions available, with lots of cold beer. We worked our way through them, and they worked their way through us.

Bamboo, like chilis, comes in many guises. But all should be boiled for one hour before cooking, and others shouldn’t be eaten no matter what. How to tell the difference is not something we dwelled upon. Lime and lemon are the same thing to the Lao, with tamarind often being used as an alternative to give the sour contrast. There are four types of basil in use. Spicy, from the jungle; minty, from the jungle; sweet (or Holy) from the garden; or a fourth, with little yellow flowers, with a bit of spice, found in the jungle. Tomatoes are commonly used; both the big sweet ones and the small sour ones. Purists rail against the introduction of the tomato to South East Asian cuisine, but just try to separate any of these people from their little red darlings. It’ll probably cost you an arm.

Morning glory comes in two types; green and small from the garden, or big and purple from the water. Mushrooms always take a special place in my heart, and Luang Prabang has beautiful fungi. Mouse ears are used heavily, as are oysters, and a huge number of others. And then there are eggplants, more than ten kinds; from the big purple aubergine we’re used to, to the tiny bitter pea-like things we find in Thai curries down south. The small purple ones – the size of a large marble – can be eaten raw, and are often served cut in half with sticky rice, while the others are all cooked. After this morning’s tour, the group had pretty much decided that if you can’t identify something, call it an eggplant.

And then there’s rice; your sticky or your steamed. The Lao grow this “dry” in the country, and there are 10 different kinds. With a three month cultivation, and a 1 kg for 9 to 10 people ratio, this can meet the food needs of a large population.

The Lao, however, don’t have a large population, and much prefer sticky rice, which takes a lot of water and 6 to 7 months to harvest. As it doesn’t expand very well, 1 kg will only feed around 4 to 5 people. It comes here in over 30 different varieties, with a host of colours.

The rice needs to be soaked for about 4 hours if it’s less than a year old. In foreign climes it’s likely it’ll be older, and would require 7 hours if it was two to three years old. It’s rinsed two or three times, and then steamed with a bamboo cover to trap in the moisture. Turn it once, steam ten more minutes, and you’re ready to put it into those cute bamboo containers to keep it moist. If it’s left out it’ll only keep for 30 minutes, so wrap it up if you don’t have the bamboo containers.

Sticky rice is only cooked twice a day. First in the morning, so that it will be ready for the monks when they make their rounds, and then for the evening meal. It doesn’t get reheated, as this can lead to stomach problems, so at the restaurant they’re constantly getting complaints from the tourists about how the rice is cold.

Given what I’ve seen in the markets, I asked if there were any restrictions on what was eaten. The answer is, basically, no. But, a lot of people have personal limits, and it’s rare to see dogs or cats eaten……and I haven’t seen a Macdonald’s here (but I think that may be more of a commercial thing, to be fair to the Golden Arches).

And thus endeth the lesson.

They’d already prepped everything for us, but took us through the exercise of cleaver prepping the meez. The galangal is enough to qualify as a work out, and we were looking around to see who’d be the first to lose a finger as we bore down on the roots. I find it’s not too difficult if you bring the weight down from your shoulders and hips, but then I probably weigh the equivalent of three Lao.

After an enthusiastic mauling of the galangal, lemon grass, eggplants, and some other items, we moved over to the stoves, of which there were four, each set over a charcoal brazier. At this point we went over the choices of seasonings.

I’m of two minds concerning this part of the course. They’re using a lot of bottled sauces, mostly of Thai origin. However, all the shop kitchens I’ve passed by have had copious bottles of stuff on the shelves, so it’s probably fair to say that this represents the “urban” side of Lao cooking (as urban as Laos gets).

One thing I do notice is that they’re making more use here of nam paa rather than the traditional padek, a chunky mix of fermented fish. However, they find the use of nam paa imparts a smell, so they’ll almost always cut it with lime juice at a 1:2 ratio (lime to nam paa) to change the smell. This makes the traditional base of much of the dressings for their salads, and, as mentioned, must go in just before the salad is served, so that the flavours don’t have too much time to change.

Their preference for oyster sauce is the Thai, which comes across a little tangier than the Chinese. Soy bean paste is used quite a bit, and both white and black soy. Regarding oils, even though you get a hotter cook from peanut oil, they avoid it due to the flavour. Sunflower is generally preferred, which makes sense, thinking back on the fields of sunflowers to the East on the Plain of Jars. Curries, so dear to the the Central Thais, isn’t much used. Only the yellow curry powder is to be seen, none of the greens and reds of a Siamese kitchen.

We begin with a couple of extra bits. First, we start preparing some rice powder. Sticky rice is dry toasted in a wok until browned, then a kaffir lime leaf and the greens of some lemon grass is tossed in for another few minutes to get the smell. Once done, it’s allowed to cool, the leaves and stalks are removed, and then the rice is pounded down and then set aside. This will keep for a few weeks if needed.

The river weed “crackers” are prepped with a quick wash in hot oil (about 2 seconds), after which they’re put in a colander to drain. We did up a few of these, served them with peanuts and the whites of some lemon grass, and had a good (if somewhat greasy) snack as we approached the next dish.

As a fast dish, they go through a chicken, tofu, and morning glory dish. First, the basics – ginger, garlic, shallots, chili. All of these go into the oil. Then some sugar, to counter the “hot”. Then morning glory goes in, with some soy bean paste and oyster sauce. Linda also recommends some green apple here, if you want, to make an interesting backdrop. Then add some white soy sauce (thinner than black) and some water.

In a parallel wok…..now there’s an engineer’s description. Running your woks in series or in parallel…..cook up the chicken in oil, then remove the chicken and introduce garlic, shallots, and ginger to the wok, adding water and oyster sauce once the aromas open up. Then some cornstarch to thicken, and a bit of nam paa and lime juice at the very last to the sauce. Bed the chicken on top of the morning glory, and then pour the sauce on top of everything.

This dish is portioned out and eaten quickly. It’s in part to show a “fast” Lao dish for unexpected guests, and also in part to stave off our hunger pangs. With this some Lao fruit liqueur is served up. This isn’t the dreaded Lao Lao, the white spirit of the Mekong, but rather a fermented “punch”, something my Lao friends back home had done up from old recipes, allowing fruits and stuff to sit and ferment, and then bottling them up. This one, a red sticky rice drink, was sweet and thick, with a couple of pieces of ice in it to drop the aromatics. Not bad, and, in the interest of young Scud’s tender years, I drink his for him.

My station is the stuffed foods – the lemon grass and bamboo shoots. The method is to slice open the middle of the bamboo and lemon grass stalks in thin cuts, and then accordion them, creating a cage within which to stuff the mince. The mince itself is a mix of diced pork, shallots, garlic, nam paa, pepper, and sugar, all squeezed out and on the verge of disgusting feeling in my hands. I took the birdcage apparatus that I’d created, and rolled it first in flour, then in egg yolks, and then in breadcrumbs. Now my hands were well beyond the verge of disgusting feeling.

Against the traditional method, the only difference of note is that Phia Sing would have grilled the mince in banana leaves prior to stuffing (as my friend said “burnt food”).

Scud’s working on the fried rice salad, composed of cooled long grain rice (old rice is not used for this), minced pork, shallots, garlic, chili powder, and egg yolks to help bind. They make a lot of use of powdered chicken stock here, added dry for salt and background flavour. Again, I wonder about the traditional element, but if it works, it works. The finished mush is then rolled up into balls, and the balls are transferred to the oil for frying.

Meanwhile, the laab of minced chicken is being prepped. This’ll be cooked, as opposed to laab dip, which is a different, raw preparation which relies on a light ceviching (and an iron digestive track) to avoid some of the unpleasantries that can occur. Along with the liver flukes in the padek, this probably killed off more CIA operatives in the Secret War than did the Vietnamese.

The chicken is prepared similar to the fried rice; the mass of minced meat being mixed up with pepper, salt, sugar, oyster sauce, and white soy. This is then rolled in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs as was the case with my stuffed items. I’m interested in this method of frying; rolling the items into balls first. Linda explains that this will give differing contrasts in texture, from the crisp elements from the outside through to the softer, almost rare parts in the middle. The items are fried at a low heat, carefully rolled over to make certain that all of the exterior is evenly browned.

Once cooked through, the balls (rice or chicken) are broken open, allowed to cool a bit, and then “smashed”. The separated material is then mixed in with the herbs; lemon grass, galangal, spring onion, coriander, shallots, chilis, banana blossom, and rice powder for the laab gai, and lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, spring onions, long beans, chilis, mint,and peanuts for the fried rice salad - and then doused with the dressing.

For the fried rice salad, the dressing is 2 tbsp of nam paa, 1 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of soy bean paste, and 4 tbsp of lime juice.

The laab gai is a more standard 3 tbsp of nam paa, 4 tbsp of lime juice, 1 tsp of salt, and 1/2 a tsp of Knorr’s chicken stock. Good old Knorr’s!

So, how far from the traditional is all of this? Checking back to Phia Sing, he would add a kheung lap with the minced chicken before cooking – a pounded mix of bitter eggplants, roasted garlic, seared shallots, galangal, and chilis grilled until brittle. Some or padek is added for salt, this being a reduction of padek in water which is boiled down to almost dry, bones removed, and then reconstituted. Ideally, this dish should be served with a sour soup and eggplants. However, I should qualify this. It is almost impossible to find any two Lao who will ever agree 100% on recipes for traditional dishes. It just comes down to what looks good at the moment.

The chicken with coconut cream was getting put together over on another wok. Onions, shallots, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal were fried in a couple of tablespoons of oil until golden (with a touch of sugar), and then the chicken pieces were added and messed around for a minute or so before adding a half cup of coconut milk to cover the chicken, and then chili powder, and oyster and fish sauces. This cooked for a bit, and then they came back and tossed in a selection of vegetables, the potatoes being the check point of when the whole thing is done (and acting to thicken things a bit). At the very end another half cup of coconut milk is added, along with some lime juice and a big handful of basil, which I can still smell when I close my eyes.

Again, comparing to Phia Sing, he would’ve cooked the chicken first in the coconut with onions, and then added the flavours after the chicken was cooked. The approach here, more like what William Ledeuil is doing at Ze Kitchen in Paris, infuses the flavours in the oil at the beginning, and gives a more developed, though not as fresh, flavour.

The Or Lam was a recipe I was particularly interested in. The Lao version of the pot au feu. Not only did it address my need for slow cooked meats, but it utilized the spicy wood – Sak khan – that I’d been interested in.

The method here was perhaps too simple. The meat was boiled for about 20 minutes, and then pounded eggplant, grilled chilis (green and red), and the sak khan were dropped in, and allowed to boil for another 10 minutes. Then it was flavoured with nam paa, chicken stock, and a touch more salt, before handfuls of dill, basil, and crispy pork skin were tossed in.

This diverged a fair bit from Phia Singh. In his recipe, the meat was boiled (on the bone) from the start with the other ingredients. Then, after an hour, the bones were tossed, and the grilled chilis and the eggplants were removed, then pounded, and then added back to the broth.

The tofu curry was fairly straightforward. Like the chicken, the oil is infused first with lemon grass, galangal, and some yellow curry powder. Then sugar and coconut milk are added to give a broth, seasonings are added, and the various veggies go in, holding back the cauliflower and mushrooms for a bit later in the boil. The tofu goes in at the end, followed by some more coconut cream and some fresh lime juice just before serving. One note I have is that, being bean paste, you don’t use nam paa with this, but rather rely on soy bean paste for the required salt.

And that wrapped up the class for us. We were close to starving at this point, so we moved quickly back to the puppy cushions and tucked in.

The dishes worked well. The tofu curry was somewhat mild, as expected. The chicken could’ve been spicier, but the flavours were a nice blend, so I wouldn’t complain. The stuffed lemongrass and bamboo shoots were very good, although I will warn you that the lemon grass, with its long fibers, is somewhat self-flossing. I’m a sucker for Lao salads, so the laab gai was very good and something I would revisit at home, and the rice salad was probably my favourite dish. The baseball method of frying gives a good range of texture, from the golden crispy external, to the almost underdone in the centre. This was definitely getting reworked in the home kitchen.

The only disappointment was the or lam. This came out too thin, which is to be expected from a short cooking period (only 30 minutes). The meat, like much of Lao meat, wasn’t broken down enough, and the broth was insipid, carrying the spiciness, but lacking a solid depth to fill it out. Obviously, I’d be having to try this again.

Add some sticky rice and a few bottles of beer Lao, and my new friends and I were soon comparing cooking schools and restaurants in the region.

One other comment, which isn’t a real concern, but you should be prepared, you don’t get the recipes for the dishes with the class. These are sold in a separate book for $5. A couple of us bought the book, a 23 page collection of the restaurant’s recipes. If you have Phia Singh’s book, this is a good thing to have, as there’s an interesting story in there about how some of the methods are changing.

But, all good things come to an end. We packed up our odds and ends, and headed out into the busy streets of Luang Prabang.

Meanwhile…..

With Scud and I out of the way, the girls had gone for a foot massage, shampoo, and various other frivolities….for about three hours. They’d lighted upon a place called Pizza Massage, which, quite appropriately, had half the shop given over to a spa, and the other half being a pizza. Their main claim to fame, however, is that they take credit cards. The cash situation was becoming a concern, and something that I would soon have to address.

Credit card signs had also lured Yoonhi into the 3 Nagas’ Mango restaurant, where she had a “perigord” salad whose memory would linger with her for weeks after. Along with the traditional walnuts, it was dressed with a dozen slabs of smoked ham, and an equivalent serving of duck breast. Serena had had a bowl of pumpkin soup which she likewise loved (for all of one afternoon. Her short term memory tends to reset every night). Yoonhi had a main of a duck leg confit with a tomato sauce.

We’d caught up on the riverside, as communications in LP are not all they could be. In all of Laos, for that matter. I’d hoped that my Thai cell would function well enough, but 1-2-call wasn’t tied in with the local network, and Yoonhi and Scud’s Saudi based cells, which work well for texting in Thailand, weren’t of much use here.

So, there we were. Comms shut down, running low (for us) on cash, the wolves veritably at the door! Hence, I was at the Riverside catching up on my notes and drinking more of the wonder amber liquid of the Lao Brewing Company, and enjoying an order of the riverweed crackers.

After some discussion, I set out for the money issue. First I went to the bank, but a sign there advised that they would no longer make cash advances against credit cards. Then I found that most of the tour companies in town will undertake this service, at a charge of 6%. At first I balked, and then reality took over and I realized, even at a 6% surcharge, anything I spent money on here was still a fraction of its value to me. Rationalized in this manner (remember, I had been drinking a lot of beer Lao), the decision was easy. I could breathe (and shop) easier now.

Dinner that night was at Mango. Yoonhi was enthusiastic enough about her lunch that I was eager to see how their fusion menu would work for a larger meal.

For starters Yoonhi and Scud had the camembert quiche, while I ordered the riverweed (dubbed “Mekong seaweed” here) with dried beef chips and roasted sesamed, served over buckwheat noodles and a vinaigrette, and a Lao risotto just to go out on the table somewhere. The mains would be pan fried filet of pork with a confit of lime perfumed tomato for me, salmon in Lao herbs and flowers fried in a brick pastry for Yoonhi, chicken and pork Bucatini with bergamot flavoured coconut milk for Scud, and taggliatelle a la pesto for Serena.

Add on a big jug of the house Gewurtztraminer (which for some reason I found a little on the oily side), and we were ready to eat.

The river weed was nicely dressed up, and the noodles were very good. I would have to say this was more about the homemade noodles than about the weed or beef chips. Still good, but not distinguished. The risotto, while it had a wonderful aroma, suffered, as they'd used the

It was December 30^th, and pushing a respectable hour of the morning. Breakfast was foe. The verandah outside our guest house was a nicely established breakfast nook; little wooden tables, rickety stools, and bottles of condiments at the ready. Chilis in vinegar; various pastes; fish sauce; and a plastic bin of fried rice cakes, which are sort of the Lao equivalent of pickled eggs. They’re always there on the table, eternal guardians of some lost secret.

I ordered four bowls of pork broth while Yoonhi banged off the walls in the bathroom, Serena skipped about, and Scud fumbled with his door (to the amazement of his fan club, who were gathering around every morning to watch him). By the time the soup was at the table, the family was in place.

I like the foe here. The broth is rich enough to get my tastebuds going, the noodles are always fresh (I see them being delivered), and the greens have slightly different flavours from those of Hanoi. Plus, unlike Vietnam, I’ve never contracted worms from eating pho in Laos.

As we ate we laid out the day’s activities. This took us a while to get settled, as any deviation from the routine of wake up, eat, sleep, massage, and eat more takes cerebral activity that was quickly getting beyond us. The distraction of watching some of the locals take their dog for a drag behind their motorcycle didn’t help.

First up, we headed for Baan Phanom. This Thai Lu village to the east of town was a respectable tuk tuk ride away, so we ditched the kids, as our primary interest was fabric shopping. Our driver was confused about our intentions, and destination. It seems that the area’s been built up as a “site”, with the elephant camp and sundry facilities clustered here. There’s also Henri Mohout’s tomb, but I’d seen that back in ’93. However, he got us to the communal fabric market, and it was a trip down memory lane.

This building is relatively new, having shown up some time between my ’93 and ’97 visits. Fairly clean, metallic, and packed with low wooden platform, which, themselves are packed with Lao ladies and their material. The attitude is much the same, though. It’s dead calm, almost comatose, up to the point where you pull out a wallet and start putting down some baht (or kip, or dollars). Then all the fabric goes up in the air, and your besieged with a clamour of “Monsieur! Monsieur!” The more you buy, the more frantic things become. Just like the old days.

My first trip I was warned that it was an off day, and that there wouldn’t be many people in the co-op, if any. I bought one piece, and a few more people came in. I bought four more, and there was a flurry of activity. By the time I had picked up a dozen pieces, all hell had broken loose. I was told after that they didn’t put much stock in Westerner’s shopping, but would pull out all the stops if the Thai came by, as volume dealers from Chiang Mai will come here to fill their stores. That’s why, then as now, Thai baht are more commonly taken, while in town the almighty dollar has taken over (although you can still get by with baht). Now, as then, the Baan Phanom was quoting in Baht.

Like I say, it’s refreshing to find some things unchanged. “Kind of pathetic”, says Yoonhi.

I got out of there with only about a dozen pieces. The prices were better than in town, and a little more high end than the street market, comparable with the boutiques (which are way more expensive). After this we retrieved our children from the one-eyed babysitter - they were glued to a Lao dubbed version of Ed, Ed, and Eddy – and headed up the river to Pak Ou.

The boat trip to Pak Ou gets on a lot of lists as a “thing to avoid”. Admittedly, while the caves are historically very important – being royal shrines linking Buddhist Laos with its animist/shamanistic river spirit worshipping side – they’re kind of lame, and get downright claustrophobic when you fill them to the brim with boatloads of tourists. But the trip is more about the trip, taking in the Mekong on this rough stretch. And, we had to get the kids out of town at least once.

I haggled for the “last boat”, and then headed up river. As usual, our first stop was the Whiskey Village (maybe I should use the Doors for this segment on the video). It was the same but different. They’re down to one still, and the old guys I used to discuss techniques with are gone. They’ve left the kit to be minded by a kid, who’s claim to fame is his ability to dump a bucket of mash into the barrel.

The town is quite tarted up, though. Lots of “antique” shops, and every other house is selling fabric. There were even a few satellite dishes about.

They were also doing a brisk trade in what is referred to as “stuff in bottles”. It’s not enough to just make moonshine. If you want real good ‘shine, you need to put a snake, or a scorpion, or something into it. Everything imaginable ends up pickled in rotgut…sort of like my liver.

We picked up a gold bedspread for half the price of the night market, and then headed back up river.

Being old, I can reminisce about the things that used to be there. As I watched the whirlpools in the water (a sign of nagas at play), I thought back to the old days. Take the gold miners (or minors, as the case may be). They were gone in ’97, but I remember them from ’93. One of the villages on the West bank was busily digging up the sandbanks of the Mekong, and panning out the gold dust they could find. It was all young girls, and we were told that they were doing this so they could afford to buy the things they’d need if they got married. I offered to buy some of the gold, and then found out they were amalgaming the stuff on the spot over an open fire with quicksilver. I waited upwind.

And I didn’t see the traders. The road to China is in good shape now, but before there was a longtail express that would take traders up to the Chinese border of the Tai enclave of Sip Sawng Panna. The boats would blast past us. In ’97 they were still working their trade, but had picked up a bit of HSE, insisting that passengers wear helmets and life vests. The month before we’d arrived, one of the boats hit a shallow outcrop of rock and killed everyone on board.

Anyways. The cave was as expected. The hike up was good enough exercise, and it does go on for a little bit. But we didn’t dally longer than needed.

Timing was about right when we returned to town. The kids were at that happy point where they’re bored out of their skulls and about to slit our throats. Yoonhi had had about all the scenery she could take, and I found myself parched. This was now pushing late afternoon and I was still without a beer Lao!

This was readily rectified. We stopped at the riverside for ham and cheese baguettes, coffee shakes, Ovaltine, and beer…. a sunset…and what appeared to be the mother of all spiders. Now that we’d eaten, it was obviously time for dinner.

This evening we tried the 3 Nagas restaurant, across the street from the Mango they also run. This was their Lao venue. We were wise enough to have made reservations the night before, as they were quite full up when we arrived. Again, a nice room. Well renovated French colonial (as if there’s any other choice), and I do note that there are a/c vents in the ceiling, which will be important if we’re back for Pimai – the Water Festival – one of these years. Pimai is in April, when temperatures are at their worst.

So, for the details!

We had Saa Moo, a salad of pork and banana blossom. Laap krouaille; minced raw buffalo and bean sprouts. Sai Oua Moo; pork sausages. Kaeng Bpai Champoo (I’m guessing at this one); Betel leaf soup with dried beef. Kranab Pa – grilled river fish stuffed with pork and herbs, wrapped and roasted in a banana leaf.

And we decided to go with the house chardonnay.

They brought out the ubiquitous rice crackers with a tamarind sauce as an amuse bouche. The tamarind stood out very well, the tartness grabbing the front of my mouth.

The laap was well mixed with chilis, and had a great burn to it. And the fried banana blossom worked in with the minced pork is a good idea, one I’ll try at home.

The buffalo was a definite winner. Lots of chilies, and fresh long beans worked in with the bean sprouts and herbs. Far too hot for Serena, but the rest of us loved it.

As I’ve said before, and will say again, I’m quite happy to make a meal just out of the salads of Laos and Thailand.

The sausages were as expected, which is to say they were really, really good. I noticed on the menu that they refer to sai oua as “Luang Prabang” pork sausages. In places in Chiang Mai the menus will refer to these as “Lanna” sausages. Without a side-by-side taste test, it’d be hard to find any major differences in the flavours. Fried sausages in a good tight skin of intestine. Lots of chilies and herbs in with the “material”. It’s another case of the long intertwining of the affairs of the Northern Kingdoms (and one I am happy to study).

The soup was very mild, carrying the smell of the betel nut leaves to some extent, but mainly dominated by the basil. Still, with the heat of the salads, this makes a comforting match, removing some of the heat.