Food Glorious Food...Khao Niaw and Aw-Lam

Mr. Muzzy and I spent "one of those days" yesterday...in our room, on a forced fast...which gave us pause to think about food.

One of the things I noticed right away upon arrival in Luang Prabang was the plethora of traditional Lao food available at all the restaurants, even the ones along the notorious Sisavangvong strip that has been laden with pizza joints, American breakfasts and European fare.  It is really nice to see.  Those who claim Laos has no cuisine, I beg to differ.  It is not like Thai food.  It is simpler, sort of sampling fare and quite tasty.  Usually there are two or three main dishes, a soup (aw-lam is a soup/stew with beef, flavored with the bark of a particular tree that lends a pungent, slightly spicy, sour flavor...don't eat the chunks of wood, please), a vegetable dish (stir fried) and perhaps a salad (the ubiquitous laarb...minced meat mixed with cilantro, rau ram, mint, sometimes bean sprouts, chilis and lime juice...yummmmmm) or a shredded bamboo shoot mixture with various additions.  To this is added the jeow...pastes of various flavors and origins...our particular favorite is jeow bawng (various spellings but essentially a sweet paste, very spicy, with a dried buffalo meat base...mmmmmmm).  There is an eggplant jeow, a thin sweet spicy dip, a tomato based jeow and several more.  The jeow are set on the table with the main dishes and the typical small baskets of khao niaw...sticky rice.  You take a small ball of sticky rice, dip it in a jeow and add a bit of a main dish...the stir fry or salads, and pop it into your mouth.  The soup is served in small bowls.  It's a communal kind of meal...everyone eating from the same bowls with the rice as the conveyance.  And then there is the Mekong seaweed.  This is gathered when the rivers are low...great veils of bright green algae, similar to nori, it is sun-dried in flat sheets dusted with sesame seeds and served fried very quickly in oil as an appetizer with a jeow...usually jeow bawng.

Have we lost you yet?  We ate at Dyen Sabai the other night across the river.  It is a Lao French collaboration and they serve up nice sample platters with a little bit of everything and explanations and good beer and a decent happy hour, all while lounging on pillows in a teak sala under stands of artfully lit timber bamboo.  We have enjoyed the Lao food...especially the seaweed and laarb, but foreign water being what it is, we spent last night eating pizza...and damned good pizza too!  BREAD!  They do that well in LP...hot crusty French baguettes that are pure heaven.  And we found a place that makes delicious lemon and chocolate tarts (each, not together).  So we are back on the mend...coffee and sweet milk for me, cafe dam (black) for Muz.  Other gastronomic pleasures include freshly picked som (oranges), sweet little delights with an easy peel, tiny bananas and papaya.  Unfortunately it is not mango season and the cashews that Muzzy so dearly loves fried as an appetizer tend to come from the fridge and are a bit chewy..but...we had excellent fried peanuts with lemongrass the other night...and Beer Lao tends to make it all more jolly.

The morning market still serves up a veritable zoo of delights....dozens of tiny frogs tied together at the ankles...the larger frogs are in an enamel basin all fighting to escape...the highly colorful crab baskets...this is hard to explain, but a handwoven bamboo circle at the bottom of which are woven in 5-count 'em- 5 freshwater crabs each about the size of a French piastre (silver dollar)...a box of small furry rodents that are too adorable to think about much...pre-cooked bats ready for re-heating, small rats, the occasional civet cat, and the other day a small pig (live and unhappy) in a poke...trussed up in a loosely woven bamboo carrying basket just the size of the pig, about 50 pounds.  I didn't wait to see the man carry him off.  We like to think he was on his way to be a stud pig in some village. There are good smells of herbs and lemongrass and cilantro and mustard and wonderful long beans and dozens of types of eggplants in different shapes and sizes, piles of wondrous mushrooms, some familiar most not, and pans of eels, tiny tiny fish that you see in aquariums at home and mountains of greenish snails that go into the local version of somtam (not-delicious local papaya salad) (much better in Thailand!) and on and on. 
However...we have reached the halfway point of our wanderings and yesterday woke up chanting "NO MORE RICE!"  Thus the reference earlier to the great pizza.

We are off to photograph the oldest Wat on the peninsula...it is a beautiful place with artful mosaics recounting the journey of the Lao peoples to this magical peninsula as well as tales from Buddha's life.
Bon appetite

The Adventure Continues...

So we found one another in the middle of the Nam Ou on a bridge to the rice paddies.  Accommodation and the mood of the villagers being what it was, we chose to travel back to Luang Prabang the next morning by slow boat.  Not a big boat, mind you, but small worn cushions on small straight backed stools.  I couldn't see the pilot because the luggage of dozens of French people was piled in the front space.  Fortunately my bag was on an outside edge and I had kept my toilet paper in my purse...always a good policy when traveling in Laos.  The boat beached itself twice...once for a pee stop...bless that pilot!...and once for portage because the river was too low to allow us to stay on...we walked in a crazy line, dozens of French people and Muzzy and I wandering hopefully on a path alongside the river.  We rejoined the boat quite a hike further on and having my bag on the outside afforded me the opportunity to forage for two of the nut bars I brought just for this occasion.  Never were nut bars so welcome!!!  Side note: it has been rare to see Americans on this trip...mostly Germans and French though we did meet 2 Greek boys at dinner the other night. 

Our friends Ann and Denny continued on to Muong Ngoi.  Denny is an ex-pat living in Albi, France since the Vietnam War.  Ann Crittenden was a war correspondent for Newsweek during the Vietnam War in Hanoi and Luang Prabang.  She told us about the last days in Hanoi and her visit to Luang Prabang when the Mekong was heavily mined and it was a dusty, rural, sad village on hard times.  She is an author and playwright who lives in Washington D.C.  I promised to meet Ann on Monday at her guest house in LP and take her to the weaving village...yes...Muz and I spent 100,000 kip on a tuk tuk to the old weaving village where I am happy to say the house that was so charming and had been torn down is now restored to former glory complete with a gorgeous upstairs full of antique fabric and costumes.  I found my yardage...exactly what I was looking for...and the nice young man who speaks excellent English remembered us because we contributed greatly to the economics of the village on our last trip and did so again this time.  I got a free scarf and two glasses of water and many "wais" as I toted my 3 bags of silk back into town...this was after having it confirmed that there is now a bamboo foot bridge over the Nam Ou that feeds directly from LP to Ban Xong Kham...the weaving village...no wonder the tuk tuk driver took a contented nap while I shopped.

Anyway...LP is prospering, changing but in a nice way.  It is still charming and the people are still wonderful.  The night market is on hard times but still optimistic.  Laos is still the nicest place to be and I am grateful and lucky that we are here.  We have booked a boat trip on the very cushy Luang Say boat back up to Houayxai and into Thailand...two days on the Mekong, an indulgence, but half the price we were quoted to go the other way when we were in the States.  So we will end up with a couple of days in Chiang Rai...can the Pie Lady pursuit be far behind?  (Muz felt so bad, Cris, that he changed our entire itinerary to continue the search) We had to refund our Lao Air tickets to Bangkok on the 5th and that is another story...

Suffice it to say that we are having a good trip.  We have moved from the back rooms at the Xieng Mouane guesthouse to a front one again...I will be able to open my shutters and watch the monks in the morning. Muz was up early to catch the monks on their morning passigieata and practice his "blurry shots".  We will try to post photos when we return to Thailand. Nong Kiaw was a whole story alone...past times, not as nice as up north in previous years, and a little too late to visit now, I think.  But...the river trip was amazing and will be again.

Until next time...
Sok Dee (good luck, happy journeys)

Luang Prabang

Just returned across the bamboo bridge across the Nam Khong river from Dyen Sabai and a delicious Lao dinner on the hillside above the river set in lovely teak wood terraces (sala) amidst towering bamboo.  Sigh...Luang Prabang Laos is truly a magical place.  Arrived from Chiang Mai on Lao air (a NEW plane!!!)...whew!  Totally mellow airport, no hustle, no hassle.  Easy ride into the old quarter on the peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Ou rivers.  We are staying at the Xieng Mouane, across the road from the wat Xieng Mouane.  Our room on the second floor looks out over the road and the wat so in the mornings we can easily hear the beating of the drums and call to prayer.  This drumming echoes throughout the peninsula, from wat to wat. Today was the day of atonement so there was massive drumming and crashing of cymbals and chanting at 4:00 am and 4:00 pm.  Did I say charming?  Did I say magical?  there really is no place on earth quite as lovely.

On Tuesday we decided to go up to Nong Kiaw, which we had heard was beautiful and more rustic.  It was truly beautiful...massive karst mountains jutting up vertically from the river, narrow gorges with the Nam Ou running in between, breathtaking scenery.  We took a mini-van up...packed with tourists but the driver did allow us one pee stop...thank god!  We were deposited at the mini-van stop and our two new friends, Ann and Denny and I, took off at a quick trot to find lodging.  We walked down the red dusty road...and walked...and walked...and walked.  I had left Muz at the station with our luggage thinking that it was only a short hike to the bridge across the river that would lead us to the guesthouses.  And we walked and walked and finally found the bridge and the "regular" bus stop right at the entrance to the bridge.  We walked across to the Riverview, which was supposed to be the best place (and it was) but they had no rooms, so we went to the next best place, the Sunset.  Somehow the woman who ran the place reminded me of Houayxai Hattie...those who know will remember her. The huts were precariously perched over the river with a wonderful view and an earful of the loudest maw lam music complete with karaoke because someone had a baby and there was a party across the river.  Bad karaoke is bad karaoke in any language.  At any rate, the room was too much but the only thing available and by this time I was in a slight panic thinking about Muzzy at the mini-van stop and how many kilometers I would have to walk to get him and then we would have to walk back and he must be wondering what the hell had happened.  So Nong Kiaw Kattie called her sister at the station and asked after a "falang with a hat".  Sister said he had gone...was no more...  Then I got really scared and started walking back to the bridge.  I could picture Muzzy loaded down like a Nepali Sherpa with 2 Brenthaven bags and his camera bag...lost, wondering what had happened...would we ever find one another again?  I started across the bridge and stopped a few feet in, peering towards the other end, red dust covering my shoes, in my hair, choking me with worry....there he was!  A small dot covered in baggage...and dust...at the other end of the bridge.  My relief was boundless.  I hurried toward him...he sort of scrabbled along under his massive load...we met, I relieved him of some of the luggage and we spent the night in Nong Kiaw under a mosquito net and a big thick quilt.  Its cold up here in the mountains....
More about the journey back down the Nam Ou by boat later....

We're Not At Ricky's Anymore

We are waiting to take a taxi to the Chiang Mai Airport, enroute to Luang Prabang, Laos.  Chiang Mai has been lovely.  Our guesthouse has been great, a real pleasure.  Breakfast has been...challenging.  Great coffee, thank goodness, but the meusli with fruit and yogurt makes me miss Ricky's in Bangkok.  Muzzy marshalls on with eggs and an amazing variety of bread things on the side.  He gave up on the french toast.  We have walked and walked, had foot massages at the Wat, a full on two hour massage at the Old Medicine School for Muzzy, and lots and lots of great food!  I think I will miss the variety of food here; kao soy, a northern Shan curry noodle dish that is a specialty here, the best somtam (green papaya salad), cashew chicken stir fry, gai yang (chicken on skewers) from the alley off the Warorot Market, and of course, sticky rice. 

Last night we went into the old part of the inner city to a restaurant (Huean Phan) famous for its northern cuisine.  It was set in an old style teak house full of antiques with antique silk fabrics on the tables. Hors d'oevures were served in a red lacquer bowl on stilts with a towering ornate crown sort of cover that the waiter removed with a flourish to reveal pickled pork balls, long green beans, spicy pork sausage, crispy fried tofu and crispy fried pork thingies with a red chili tomato dipping sauce in the middle. We had jackfruit salad, crispy pork with lemongrass, green chili sauce with vegetables...and sticky rice. Yup. great food!

We first came to Thailand and Chiang Mai in 1990.  Both have changed.  Chiang Mai is a big city with a small city feel still, but it has definitely grown and spread.  You no longer see women in the traditional phasin (wrap skirts) except for older women or on special occasions.  People are still very polite, still wai as a marker of social position, but it is much more western over here.  There are cross lights at some of the breathtaking intersections you need to cross to get around, although they serve as suggestions to vehicles rather than hard and fast orders.  You still take your life in your hands as you dodge cars and songthaew and tuk tuks, motorbikes and even samlors (single person bicycle rickshaws).  There is still morning price and bargaining in the Night Market, but the Night Market seems tarnished with little appeal.  We preferred walking around, sitting and watching people.  The daytime excitment of the Warorot Market, ringed with Chinese gold shops where Thais shop for household goods, flowers, food and a myriad daily items was much more fun than any of the tourist oriented places.  We did visit our friend Buckley at Kesorn Arts and had fun buying ancient beads and talking about the old days.  I also got to see a magnificent exhibit of antique Chinese robes, shawls, bedspreads and hangings at Lost Heaven.  Sadly, all of them were for sale and none of them even remotely in my price range.  All I could do was sigh.

So now we journey on to an even slower paced country...and we are glad.

Chiang Mai at last

Definitely time to leave Bangkok.  Our two best meals were street lunches and on our last day we visited for quite a while with two sisters who are owners of a wonderful little shop on Pra Atit, Chonabod, which roughly means "country".  They carry organic cotton silk screened T shirts with Thai language alphabet letters on them and clever pictures that illustrate what the letter means.  They gave us a set of letterpress postcards and I bought two real cotton pa ka ma, sort of a man's sarong, but so much more.  The ones I have all have synthetic thread in them and are useless as towels.  These are lovely.  The ladies fed us fruit...one that I'm sure Sarah will know that is like a potato, which for some reason gave one of the ladies fits of laughter.  She spent time giving me Thai language lessons which was wonderful...and Sarah will also be proud that I am using as much of my Thai as I can...proper addressing of others and all.  Our new friend tried to tell me about a tonal exercise that sounded like "Thai, thai, thai, thai.  It sounded familiar but...anyway...they warned us of an impending demonstration and suggested an early departure for the train station, so we ate a lovely lunch, somtam and an incredible pork salad dish and took off for Hulalampong (bad spelling, sorry) train station.

The big train station gave Muz ample photo ops; a seating area for monks, the usual train station characters who are the same the world over only they were speaking Thai to their invisible friends, country people camped out on the floor and forced to move along by the Railway Police.  We finally boarded our refrigerated sleeper car and were surrounded by a gaggle of 14 giggling teenage Danish schoolgirls being herded by 3 adults. We had reserved two lower berths and when they plopped themselves down in the seats across from us I fell over laughing, thinking they would be our noisy companions through the night.  One of the girls looked at me and said in halting English, "Don't worry, ve are yust waiting, not sitting here."  It was quite a parade up and down the aisles all night. And the refrigeration was intense...freezing for a couple of hours and then warm for a couple.  The Dutch older foursome in the seats behind us took exception to the cold with the young Thai porter who replied in frustration, "NO LOWER NUMBER!  Only on and off!".  He made a sucking sound and shook his head as he made up my berth.  I smiled and smiled, murmuring kor thot, excuse me...the nice American.  After the train porters went to sleep for the night Muzzy was able to "locate" two more contraband blankets.  Trains are a lovely way to travel.  They don't seem to intrude the way a highway does.  A night's lodging and you arrive at your destination only 2 hours behind schedule, but hey, we have no time tables!  It was a full moon and between shivers, Muz and I gazed out at the jungle and the full moon dancing through the clouds as the train wiggled and bounced us up to the north.

So...Chiang Mai...the air is fresher, the pace is slower, the fruit is sweeter and the food is better.  You all know I am always on the lookout for "CHARMING", so I took a chance and directed the outrageously expensive taxi driver to the TaePae Boutique House, Soy 5, Th Tae Pae, just down from the Tae Pae Gate.  Chiang Mai is a walled city, built in the 11th century by King Mengrai...white elephants and all...I'll tell you about that later.  This is a lovely little guesthouse, immaculate, polished wood stairs, set back from the road, quiet, light, lovely garden, cooing doves and the bed is good!  The walls are decorated with lovely stenciled vines and the bathroom is a real plum!  Only and occasional tuk tuk goes by.  I'm happy, I'm charmed!

Bangkok Redoux

AKA Asia anew.  The flight was as well as could be expected for a looonnnngggg flight. Arrived Bangkok. The New Siam II remaims the same but it won't be for long.  They have taken over the entire corner now and are building an extension with a new lobby facing Th Phra Atit.  I hate change, but the same people still staff the desk and I think the older woman who manages actually remembers us, especially when I mentioned our daughter the teacher.  Ricky's Cafe has moved next door to a larger spot.  The first morning was a little dodgy (but so were we)...I hate change (did I mention that?) but after the first bowl of meusli and fruit with yoghurt and the STRONG cup of coffee with sweet milk, I made peace with the new Ricky's and actually decided it might be a good thing!  The day before we arrived there was a heavy rainstorm so the Bangkok air is clear and fresh (!) and it was actually cool in the morning.  This made our transition easier.  However, jetlag being what it is, we slept in the afternoon, dragged ourselves awake for dinner and then collapsed back in bed until we are wide awake at 1:00 am.

Since we are only in Bangkok for 2 days, we decided to go to Chatuchak Market immediately. Wow!  It was cool and not crowded.  While it is familiar to us, it is still one of the most exciting markets in the world and it was nice to stroll and see what was for sale.  We had great coffee at a little stall.  Coffee is the new "thing" in Thailand.  It is grown here up in the north and the burdgeoning middle class has made it their own.  Young people with wacky hair styles and hip clothes order lattes and capuccinos in English.  Honestly, if you have ever thought about coming to Thailand, just go for it.  It is quite wonderful here!  I don't know whether these trips make us feel younger or older, but they certainly make us feel alive.

Day two was the Amulet Market.  I thought I hadn't been there before, but I had...nevermind.  It was like new.  We took the river taxi from Pra Atit to Th Chang, walked through the warrens of stalls, sorted through bins and bins of amulets, statues, small penis talismans, monks in plastic covers, jars of herbs, bottle of brightly colored nostrums and hundreds of cats.  Made a few purchases and walked down to Wat Po, the home of the Reclining Buddha, the largest reclining Buddha anywhere, I think.  FABULOUS, and it wasn't crowded.  Woo hoo!!!  Once you see the Buddha, if you wander back through the Wat, you are richly rewarded with some of the most beautifully decorated plinths and temples and gateways in Thailand.  This is truly a lovely spot and Muz found it photo rich.  We finally made it back to the massage pavillion.  Wat Po is the oldest traditional massage school in Thailand.  The last time I was here they were rebuilding the pavillion.  Now it is finished and open.  It is air conditioned and beautifully decorated.  You can select form an assortment of massage options.  Muzzy did and hour and a half of herbal massage, $15.  I did an hour herbal massage, about $10.  After the massages, we were pretty wiped out and made our way to the pier to catch the river ferry back to the New Siam, stopping to have some somtam and fried rice.  I had ordered "gai", chicken, but they sort of forgot us and when they remembered, I ended up with fried rice with squid and shrimp.  Yummiest meal yet!  Street food is still the freshest and best, hot off the propane burner.  I love the way you sit in the middle of several carts and they all conspire to get you the food you want, yelling back and forth to each other, splitting the money up after you pay.  The Thais eat here too.

Last trip we found a wonderful restaurant on the Chao Phraya called Kinlom Chomsaphan...roughly, eat the wind and look at the bridge...We loved it and looked forward to going back.  This time it was full of young middle class Thais who looked like they were playing dress up from an Indian gangsta movie.  It felt like young Thai date night.  The food wasn't as good as we remembered.  This was definitely not our place, it was their place and that's probably as it should be.  It was a good night all things considered.  The next night we visited Jok Pochana, which I almost missed as it used to be set up along the klong that runs through Banglamphu.  It still is, but someone has built a huge 3 storey hotel along the klong so Jok Pochana has set its tables up across the street along the lane.  Now that was good!!!  Great food, lots of atmosphere, and much more relaxed.

This afternoon we are headed to the train station to catch the overnight Special Express to Chiang Mai in the north.  It leaves at 6:00 pm and we have two lower sleepers.  We arrive at 7:00 in the morning.  Bangkok is fun, but the adventure begins now.  The north is mellower and it just gets more laid back from here.

Time to go

Friday morning is coming fast.  One bag each.  Mine is nearly packed but I am still trying to figure out which books to take.  Nothing precious because I will dump them in a local travel library when I am finished, so I have ratty paperbacks, Innocents Abroad, A Moveable Feast, something trashy and something else...Henry James?  Wish I hadn't read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy...that would be fun.  The trip is loosely plotted, some of it depending on the availability of train tickets and plane tickets, but it is firmly anchored with Bangkok at the start and a week on the beach at the end.  Time for 2 visits to Chatuchak Market, plenty of time at the night market in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, as well as the night market in Luang Prabang, a trip out to the hill villages around Muang Ngoi and even a visit to the Pie Lady outside Chiang Rai!  I left lots of downtime, realizing that I have lots of downtime here at home, but downtime in a Lao village is so much better.  No internet, no electricity, no English.  No problem.