Lovely, Lovely Luang Prabang

Relaxed from massages and with full bellies from our cooking class, our next destination was Luang Prabang, Laos.  Look at a map - Chiang Mai is only about 100 km from Luang Prabang.  Should be an easy journey, right?  Let's just say that looks can be deceiving.  Factor in roads, mountains, and rivers, and the journey overland from Chiang Mai to LP isn't just a couple hours - it's two days by bus, or three days by bus and boat... or one hour by plane.  The flights weren't particularly cheap, but we decided that we would splurge and fly.  One hour in a Lao Airlines ATR-72 and we were in Laos' most beloved city and a UNESCO world heritage site.  Guidebooks rave about it, fellow travellers rave about it - how good can this place be?

We kicked off our first evening with a wander along the famous Mekong River.  Hazy skies make for lovely light over the longboats that ply the river.

 Second order of business - taste the national beer, Beerlao, at a riverside cafe.  Unfortunately our bottle was stale (a one-year-old bottle of light lager tends to get that way), but that didn't ruin the scenery.

The French colonial influence on LP plays a big part in its beauty.  It also means that many of the signs are in both Laotian and French, and could also be the cause for the large number of French-speaking tourists here.

We wandered around to find a city just as lovely as claimed.

Waking up to a cool morning - only about 20 degrees - we headed our way up the nearby hill, Phu Si. Phu Si is about 100 metres high with a temple on top, a cave shrine, and the ruins of a temple originally constructed in 1395.

A temple at the bottom of the hill in the Royal Palace complex, now a museum.

There's about 300 stairs, with vendors along the way happy to take your Laotian Kip in exchange for a cold beverage or a snack.

Standing atop Phu Si looking out at the valley below.

Looking back down on the city - LP has about 62,000 people and its fair share of sprawl.

Never mind the monk building, can you see the spider in the centre of this shot?  Bigger than anything we saw in Australia for sure.

Some of the walkways have dragon tails as railings.

Back down the hill, we decided to try our luck crossing the bamboo footbridge to the other side of the Nam Khan River.  Before 6 pm it costs about a dollar to cross, with money going to reconstruct the bridge after it is removed each year in time for the wet season floods.  And why would luck be needed to cross this bridge, you may ask?

It's a bit rickety, to say the least.

Chad's not scared of the big bad bridge!

On the other side we found a cafe in the shade overlooking the river where we drank (fresh) Beerlao, tried to play French Trivial Pursuit, and ate - steamed rice for me, black sticky rice and smoked eggplant dip for Chad.  Heaven, particularly as the day was really starting to heat up by then.

1) Ball up the rice, 2) Dip in the eggplant concoction, 3) Enjoy! 

Looking up the river on our way back.

In the heat of the day we wandered about town taking in the sights - in particular those related to food - before realizing that we are on vacation and it was too damn hot to be outside in the sun.

These are (probably) water buffalo sausages drying in the hot, hot afternoon sun.

We emerged for dinner just before the sun went down.  I'll leave you with this shot that Chad took near sunset and you can judge LP for yourself...

Thai Chef School

On the recommendation of our Thailand-travelling friends Grace and Luke, we attended Basil Cookery School with a nice German couple (Jen and Michael), and were taught by chef Owen.  We can't recommend them enough - we learned a lot about Thai ingredients and cooking techniques, the facilities were comfortable and complete, our instructor was very friendly and helpful, and they kept the student:teacher ratio to 4:1.  Plus we absolutely gorged on Thai food we made ourselves - 6 courses entirely from scratch (including making curry paste and making coconut milk).

[Sarah: This was a particularly exciting day for me, as I had been watching Chad eat Thai food for days on end and was unable to partake.  Since the school could accommodate my allergies and my vegetarianism, this was my chance to try it out!]

(Warning: many amateur photos of food follow.)

Sarah is extremely happy at the prospect of eating something besides Subway and rice noodles for the first time since arriving in Thailand.

Basil picked us up and drove us to the school in typical Chiang Mai taxi fashion - a pickup truck with seats in the back.

Our first stop was at one of Chiang Mai's many markets.  Owen spent at least 20-30 minutes doing a show-and-tell, describing Thai produce to us.  This was insanely valuable - we love food markets, but until this point didn't really know what most of the fruits and vegetables were in Thailand.  A huge variety.

Several types of eggplant, Thai ginger, finger-like radishes, limes, hot peppers,etc...

The wee eggplants that, cut in quarters, are used in green curry

Kaffir lime and a kaffir lime leaf.  So aromatic!

Chef Owen with a loofa.  You can eat it when it's young like this.  If you let it grow to maturity, then hang it to dry and let the skin fall off, you get the loofa (sponge) like you use to scrub yourself with in the shower

A banana flower with a petal peeled back

Lots of snack food at the market too, like these chips, beans and nuts

Or banana leaves filled with spicy wee fish or shrimp

The happy Basil kitchen.  I clearly need to buy myself a proper wok and a stove frame to hold it.

First dish: Sarah's wok-made vegetarian drunken noodles.  Her favourite dish.  [Sarah: Understatement of the year.  It was so tasty that I almost cried when I ate it :)]

I was happy to be diving into classic pad thai noodles (100% wok-made) for my first dish.

If only my haircut was as good as this plate of pad thai...

The course was worth the price of the first dish alone.  So good!  Also interesting was how few dried/preserved herbs and spices Thai cooking uses.  The pad thai, apart from a couple of standard sauces (fish sauce, oyster sauce, tamarind sauce), uses none - all the spice is from fresh ingredients.

Next up was soup - Sarah with a mild coconut milk-based vegetarian option, me with a prawn soup tom yum style (smoked chili sauce).  Fantastic, and only takes a few minutes to make.  I was stuffed and feeling very content by this point.  But there were 4 more courses to come...

Sarah sets about making spring rolls.

Lots of fresh, quickly-stir-fried ingredients are sealed in wrappers and...

...plunged into hot oil.  Basil uses soya oil for all its cooking.

The finished rolls, including one cute basket version.

 

Instead of spring rolls, I chose classic green papaya salad.  You shred green (unripe) papaya (the big, more asian-style one), which is not unlike cabbage.  Then you pound it in a big clay mortar with herbs, spices and sauces to make a spicy coleslaw-like salad.

I waited a bit too long before eating it, so a lot of juice escaped.  But it was still tasty and refreshing.

Next up was - CURRY!  Now we're talking.  I did green curry - my favourite - while everyone else did red.  The ingredients are nearly identical, except that green curry uses fresh hot peppers (a bit hotter) and eggplant, while the red uses dried and rehydrated (thus red) hot peppers.

Classic Thai "bird's eye" hot peppers are used, and these are pounded with a few dried herbs, garlic, lemongrass and several other ingredients.  And pounded.  And pounded. Until finally you end up with a tasty paste.

Sarah goes to town on the red curry paste.  Her left hand is in a recommended defensive position, so that the hot ingredients don't squirt up into your eye.  I let my guard down for a minute and got a little pepper juice in the eye and wow, I can confirm it burns!  Protective glasses are probably your best bet.

My finished green curry paste.  Drooooool.

Thai curry also requires coconut milk.  Which we made!  Put fresh coconut in a blender, wrap it in cheese cloth, steep in warm water then squeeze repeatedly.

Thai cooking rocks!

Ingredients for our stir fries laid out on the table.  Oddly enough the stir fry was the least interesting of the dishes we cooked - pretty basic flavours, which I suppose would be good if your tastebuds aren't big fans of exotic flavours.

Sarah's tofu stir fry next to her vegetarian red curry.  Very nice.  Cooking vegetarian Thai means replacing the ubiquitous fish sauce with light soya sauce, and the oyster sauce with mushroom sauce [Sarah: I was shocked by how tasty the mushroom sauce was; I will definitely be sourcing this when I get home!].

My minced pork stir fry beside my unbelievably great green curry.

Finally, my dessert.  Lady finger bananas (the little, flavourful ones), coated in shredded coconut and a bit of flour, sugar and salt, deep fried about 15-20 minutes, and served with some vanilla ice cream.  Very good.

But the surprised winner of the dessert course was Sarah's black sticky rice pudding.  Here she is toasting coconut in a wok with a little sugar and salt.  The dessert is a layer of black sticky rice (cooked 1 hour), covered with some coconut cream, and topped by a huge sheaf of toasted coconut.  When you get all three layers in a spoonful - oh man, heaven.

Sarah's deceptively tasty dessert

The class, happy and full

Feeling perfectly content, we went back to our room and half-slept/digested most of the remainder of the day away.  We got a certificate and a great little recipe book so we can try to make some of these dishes back home - though we'll likely have to find substitutions for some ingredients.  Thanks again Basil!