Laos Breast Milk In Eye!

Taking a small break from our kayaking

Me and Dutch veggie vet Esther journeyed to Luang Nam Tha for a spot of trekking. We did a days worth of exhausting research to find the most ethically conscious and eco-friendly trekking operator in town. On day one we kayaked downstream. The captain of my kayak was one of the guides which made my kayaking easy as we easily navigated the shallows and tight rapids, and even though I thought I was working quite hard my arms didn't feel the pinch the next day. In the time it took me to find a spot to pee my guide, Ped, has set up a barbecue for our fish! Impressive foodie skills. We laid our food out on two huge banana leaves and feasted on lots of sticky rice (which we ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. No complaining from me mind as I love the glutinous stuff!) and other bits and bobs including tofu, barbecued pork, barbecued fish dipped in a simple chili and salt dry dip... Yum yum!

Ped preparing the fish and our kayak

Eventually we reached the village where we stayed the night in a basic, single-roomed wooden hut on stilts with an outside toilet and the river as our bathtub! After another delicious meal a thunder storm whipped up and threw dust in my eye. This pesky dust would not budge and continued to plague me well into the second day of trekking. My right eye and nostril were just streaming. A woman from the village who made our lunch thought I was crying because I missed my boyf and carried my water for me in sympathy. She was pretty old, I felt so bad, but she was very insistent, plus a lot more sure-footed than me on the slippery rocks and leaves!

The village on the second night. We slept in similar accommodation.

At one point the pain got so bad and the vision so blurry that we all had to stop and try and resolve my eye situ. Esther and a Frenchie trekker fashioned a contraption with a water bottle and pierced lid and shot water into my eye to dislodge the dust. No luck. And so I trundled on with water tears streaming down my right eye as my tear ducts tried to dislodge this foreign body. I looked and felt a mess and was having a miserable time and for most of the second day that I barely saw the jungle. Although I did spy a few tiny leeches trying to burrow their way through my socks with sandals (definitely a look to be kept to the jungle, for sure!!). I picked a few off but a few wriggled through to suck my foot blood. But surprisingly I was the least squeamish of the trekkers despite having the most inappropriate footware for a leech invasion!

We reached the Lan Tan village late afternoon and they presented their handicraft wares before us. I really couldn't see at this point and kept my head down and my eyes covered. One of the older women in the village noted my state and asked our guide what was wrong. She then offered to sort my eye out. She grabbed my eyelid and turned it inside out and saw the glob of dust then grabbed at her stringy, fabric necklace and dabbed at my eyelid with one of these threads. It worked!! The dust was all gone!!



Action shot! Cleansing breast milk being dripped into my eye!!

 For extra measure she asked, via our guide, if she could drip some breast milk into my eye to soothe the pain...I was hesitant. But in these few seconds of thinking that it would be the most gross and weird thing to have breast milk dribbled into my eye versus the desperation of being in so much scratchy pain for such a long time, she had already grabbed a villager and pumped out a few drops of her breast milk and collected it in a handy scrap of banana leaf. She then tipped my head back and dripped the milk into my eye!! It was warm! It was hilarious!! A trickle made a road towards my mouth but that would have been too much and I swiftly wiped  the milk away. I was saved!! It honestly felt like I had got my life back after being in so much pain for so many hours and fearing blindness (it was in my one good eye after all...I know, I was internally being somewhat of a hypochondriac!). I obviously repaid the woman who saved my life by buying a bracelet off her which will forever remind me of this bizarre, lifesaving event!!

Souk Dee Pii Mai!

Esther and I on the beach covered in water and flour!

Happy Laos New Year!! Possibly my best and most favourite new year of my life. Laos celebrates its new year with lots of water, colours, and flour, oh and some religious and family elements too. The families of and around Luang Prabang team up and gather outside their homes to throw water at any passersby. They are very well prepared with water guns, hoses, big buckets, and even evil ice buckets to make the water super chilled. Each little suburb or family group get matching tshirts printed up to mark out their gang and create a bit of extra competition. The water symbolises cleansing before entering into the new year, and then coloured paint and water gets thrown into the mix for fun. This lasts for days and days, and when you finally think they must have got bored of it, oh no!, you get soaked again!!

Making the sandy stupa on the beach

The owner and family of the hostel I was staying at invited us hostel guests to join in with the merriment and so we all headed over as one big team through the town and to the beach on the other side of the river for further new year festivities and traditions. We made it to the beach side completely soaked, covered in paint and flour (the flour and water made a grim paste in my hair but still a great lol), then we helped the family to build a sandy stupa decorated with flour, flowers, and flags. It was so lovely to be part of such a special and personal moment of the Laos people. We then cracked open an obligatory Beer Laos and danced along to a local band in the sandy mud under a sprinkler. Good times for sure!

A Laos family enjoying a feast at the Kuang Si waterfalls on the eve of the main, watery, new year, beach event.

Kuang Si waterfalls. Just divine.

Stretches of Cave

I ventured ever so slightly off the beaten track and towards the caves of Kong Lo starting at the nothing town of Tha Khaek. I traveled my favourite way: by local transport of course with all the usual breakdowns and food stops at roadside stalls and restaurants then I transferred to songthaew (a pick-up truck adapted for shared taxi use) where I was neatly dropped off at the start point of the Kong Lo caves. I hopped in a tiny boat with the boatman and guide and off we went. For well over an hour, possibly two, I was powered along the water which cut through the 7 km stretch of awesome caves. It was incredible: the caves were like huge chambers in some places where not even my torch beam could reach, and it was so eerily quiet (well apart from the hum of the boat motor). The caves and stalagmites and stalactites morphed into a crazy chapel effect type structure and it was utterly breathtaking. I have never seen anything like it! This is a cave to recommend to all!

At one point we got out and had an explore of one section of the caves on foot which was prettily lit by a few blue and pink lights.

Those who are brave and cocky with a motorbike could venture and do The Loop taking in a few small villages over a few days before reaching the caves, but I was more than happy with my public transport adventure which ended in a 5 hour trip sat on a plank propped in the middle of the songthaew (not even sat on one of the mildly padded benches), but time flew by on this entertaining, sometimes hair raising ride (as per!).

Exiting the cave. The outside nearly as impressive as the inside.

Pretty Much 4,000 Islands

I missioned it to the south of Laos via a double bed sleeper bus which I shared with a stranger: a clarinet playing British girl. I stayed on Don Det, one of these 4,000 Islands, and had a super chilled time, even bumping into a couple of Team Laos members on this tiny island. I hired a bicycle a couple of times and looped both Don Det and Don Khong in a morning casually cycling along the bumpy pathways through the island jungles and villages and along the delta of the islands. I even saw a heron casually hanging out on the back of a water buffalo (which would have been a great photo pic had I not been crashing around trying to find my camera!). I even managed to cycle past this cow-like creature without getting too phobic about the situ. The islands and deltas were very beautiful indeed. 

A nice little scenic spot on my cycle about two of the 4,000 islands

Cruising around the islands towards sunset



And who knew watermelons grew like this?? On a tiny little sandy mound (erm, island)

Bon Appetite!

I arrived in Vientiane looking for a bit of alone time after the booze based debauchery with Team Laos. I headed for the Wat in the forest and attended a freebie meditation class led by a couple of the monks. This included the usual: focus on your breath and clear your mind tricks, then we moved onto some meditation I hadn't tried before: walking! We got up and walked around the hall using the slowest and smallest steps of your life. It helps to concentrate the mind on your feet when previously you've been concentrating on your head and it really worked. Unusual technique but a winner for me. Next door to the Wat was a herbal steam bath so of course I had a few rounds in this rickety wooden steam bath wrapped in a Laos sarong with breaks to drink herbal tea to rehydrate after sweating out all of the Beer Laos.

The meditation session was held here...

Unfortch I undid all of this cleansing and purification and went for a huge steak dinner!! I, accompanied by a French girl and Belgian woman, treated ourselves to a huge steak, with creamy mushroom sauce, avec chips (not fries!) with my fave and absolutely most missed condiment mayonnaise, fresh salad drizzled in vinigarette, and a little bread bun, accompanied by a little Beer Laos, naturally. I splurged a little here and spent 75,000 Kip on this meaty, European feast. The French and the Belgian were happy with this dish so I was relieved to know that my British palate, which had known virtually nothing but Indian curries for four months, could still appreciate a French meaty dish and that it wasn’t just cravings for European cooking that made me gush over this meal! 

So much GOLD!! It looked even more sparkly and ridiculously lavish in the crazy sunshine.

The next day we went cycling in the midday sun around clean and easy Vientiane. Everything seems so fresh and refreshing after India! Vientiane oozes the European, especially with the mountains of French and Belgian restaurants and a good dose of café culture dotting the streets. 

After a tough admin day of going to the post office and sorting out my visa for Vietnam I treated myself to a gloriously cinnamon spiced apple pie and iced coffee at JoMas as an extravagant treat (yes, I have many a food based treat) made even more luxurious by the near-lifesaving aircon.

G&T and the Outdoors

Team Laos traveled via minibus and the windiest roads towards Vang Vieng the home of the hideous tubing boozing phenomenon which just screamed Brits abroad! Oh dear. Vang Vieng is set in the most lovely and impressive of scenes with karsts and rivers and greenery galore.

Team Laos went on a cave tubing (floating on the river in a huge inner tube of a tyre) and kayaking expedition. For the cave tubing we sat in our tubes wearing hazardous head torches with the biggest battery pack just casually sloshing about in the water. Trying to forget about the obvious water/electrical hazard we pulled ourselves through the cave by ropes attached to the cave walls as we bobbed along in our tubes. It was an impressive, surreal, and fun activity.

After our stream-side lunch we went kayaking down the river which was chilled and beautiful and the weather was perfect (well maybe a bit too sunny and bright for my pasty skin so out came the factor 50 and a long sleeved top to protect me from the rays!). We paddled through minor rapids and past a herd of water buffalo chilling in the river until we reached the tubing stretch. Urgh! Such a horrifying contrast as we turned the river bend! Cringey and tasteless dance music thumped out while teens boozed about looking a mess. We paddled a little further downstream to stop for a Beer Laos or two, jumped off a high platform into the refreshing river, with a few of the braver Team Laos members swinging from a high trapeze and then flinging themselves into the river below.

One of our guides setting up the top rope with ease on Sleeping Wall

The next day saw the Team Laos girls rock climbing on Sleeping Wall. Lots of jugs to grab onto and occasionally dodging the odd spider and spider web inside the holds. It was lots of fun, of course, and it felt great to be able to complete most of the climbs set up for us. I didn't manage one where you had to sort of shimmy and sidestep a big tree trunk but got up pretty high so I was happy and proud of my climbey achievements. Half a day of this was enough for my feeble guns! To reward ourselves we sipped on a G&T (so British!) bucket with lots of fresh lime (of course) as we sat on a bamboo raft that hovered over the river.

Confusion with drinks orders so this little old lady wades back to shore and picks up this huge drinks menu and wades back across to our spot out on the river to clarify our G&T bucket. Hilarious!!

Slow Boat to Team Laos

I took the two day slow boat from Huay Xai down to quaint Luang Prabang. And here was the creation of Team Laos, an international group of English, American, Finish, French Canadian, South African, Australian, Chilean... The scenery was dramatic, not at all what I was expecting, and so it was just lovely to sit and gaze out of the boat as we passed mountains and villages. There were a few hairy moments as we sailed over rocky shallow waters. Beer Laos and Lao Lao whiskey warmed us all on the second day of the journey as the skies clouded over and the wind blasted us but my woolly Pushkar blanket kept me snug. We made regular pitstops to pick up Laos villagers en route who loaded up with boat with veg and stacks of tasty pumpkin to which Team Laos got particularly attached.

View from the slow boat along the Mekong

We docked in Luang Prabang and miraculously found accommo for Team Laos then off we went out for food and Lao Lao cocktails. My first traditional meal in Laos was the special festival food of water buffalo laap with sticky rice. A unique combination of flavours including mint, coriander, chili and lime...and probably a few more indecipherable herbs and spices and condiments thrown in there as well.

Day two and a few of us girls roamed Luang Prabang by bicycle tackling a bamboo bridge river crossing where we had to carry our super cute bicycle down lots of steps, then found out we had to pay a small Kip fee as we got to the bottom of the steps, then across we ambled, and of course more carrying of bicycles on the other side. Phew! A noodle soup stop was of course mandatory after all of these easy breezy cycling about town.

Crossing the precarious bamboo bridge!

The night market held tasty mounds of veggie food and barbequed meats and fish to satisfy all palates. Pile your plate high choosing from tofu, fried morning glory, pumpkin, salads, an array of vegetables, all different genres of noodles and rice. Once you've made your selection it gets woked up with your desired level of chilis and is ready to eat, all for a bargainous 10,000 Kip.

A bit of a blurry shot of my favourite stall at the night market with the smiliest cook around. Such a delish feast!

Smart Cook!

My time in Thailand was very brief on this, my second jaunt to the country, but of course I found time enough for a Chiang Mai cooking class with Super Cook Super May. The closest I'd got to cooking in the four months in India was popping to the fruit and veg market in Calcutta and picking up a tasty selection of tropical fruits, chopping them up, adding some curd and nuts for a tasty fruit salad eaten from my tiffin tin. At the time this felt enough like cooking and I was very pleased with my culinary masterpiece (of sorts!).

Posing in my lovely purple apron complete with machete!

First we took a train to a little village, stepped off the platform and onto bicycles and cycled to and around the organic farm wearing our sombreros to shield us from the Thai sun, stopping off to pick a few herbs and spices for our menu. May, our cooking tutor was impressed with the general level of our collective spice tolerance. I added 3 chilis to one of my dishes which just shows the level of spice exposure I have been forced to tolerate over these past months. Back in Blighty all I could manage was a korma curry and even found Carmex lip balm too spicey! However, to put this into perspective May adds at least seven chilis to her dishes!! Still a long way to go!!

Fried spring rolls at the back, banana spring rolls and condensed milk dip and my fresh spring rolls at the front garnished with a sweet condiment and coriander..urm, yes, it is lopsided but sometimes these comps are a struggle!

Spicy papaya salad with another shot of my fresh spring rolls

Thai green curry including handmade green curry paste which was pretty labour intensive. Served with steamed rice. And for dessert a slightly unusual but super tasty pumpkin in coconut milk. Pumpkin is my new fave veg.