Waterfalls and Dumplings

Well, this thing really went downhill fast didn't it? But hey, we've been busy finding and moving into our new home, Tom has been mining mines, I've been doing a bit of freelance work and buying rugs, and things seem to take a long time to get done here. Like, the time it took three days and four different guys coming to the house to get our internet connected. Yeah. Serenity now.

We've also been trying to assimilate into the Vientiane expat social scene - which may or may not have involved furiously dancing to Backstreet's Back at a Fourth of July party... details are hazy.

So we have moved into our new house and it's niiiiiice. We are happy. And there is an amazing no-name noodle and rice place just down the road. Cue the latest addition to our hangover scrambled eggs: fried rice. I will do a housey post soon once we buy some furniture to make it look a little less crack-den-y as it's pretty much just a couch, TV and two (to die for) rugs at the moment. Did I mention the fact our street flooded the other day? Or the rugs? All in good time...

For now, I thought I'd riff a little about our recent weekend away in Luang Prabang, which was just what we needed to escape Vientiane for a bit. LP is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as in the whole city, woah! It's about 30min north by plane and is extremely beautiful and quaint and we split our four days there into equal parts drinking/eating and walking/sweating. It was lovely. I had a mini freak out when we discovered our hotel (The Apsara - highly recommended) features in the Hip Hotels: Orient book that I used to pour over at the gallery. Pretty exciting. So naturally I took about 1000 photos of the cute soap packaging:

I mean, it's parrots!!

Here are some photos from the walking/sweating/awesome palm tree portion of the holiday:

The first rule of Luang Prabang is... 

LP is where the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers meet. This is the NK.

We did venture out to the Kuang Si Waterfalls which were preeeeetty, preeeeetty, preeeeetty good. Although getting in a random van on the side of the road with ten other travelers and a driver who in hindsight was possibly pinging on a mix of Lao Lao and speed was maybe not the best idea. Cue an hour of everyone looking at each other nervously and gripping to seat backs as we careened around sharp mountain bends with horrible music blaring and the driver screaming into his phone in Lao. Driving off the side of a mountain in that van while listening to LMFAO on repeat would pretty much be the worst way to go. BUT it was all worth it when we arrived at the waterfalls.

Gorgeous hey? What they don't tell you is there are hundreds of little fish in there which bite you. As my dad would say 'that's how they get you!'. You may not know that one of my phobias is generic looking grey fish, so this kind of freaked me out and my dip in the waterfalls possibly wasn't as relaxed as it could have been. But eventually I stopped screaming every time a fish bit me and just went with it. Because sometimes you just need to let tiny fish gnaw on you and then have recurring nightmares about it later.

There was also a bear sanctuary which had rescued Asiatic Sun Bears in it. They were really cute, but then as we were leaving one of them was staring at me - I mean REALLY giving me the eye - and it made me feel quite uncomfortable. So I didn't take any photos of them. But I did take this shot of the 'educational bear wall' which isn't really to scale.

This is the only photo that Tom has actually ever asked me to take of him.

Then our driver tried to use us in his ploy to rip everyone else in the van off. We were having none of it - actually I thought that his winking at us as he told us the wrong price so we would 'go along with it' was him just being off his face - so you know we pretty much saved everyone (one Spanish lady) from paying 10,000kip extra (just over a dollar). Heroes of the van.

To conclude this post, which hasn't really offered any insight into how amazing LP actually is, here are some photos of the drinking/eating portion of the trip. Namely this alley way that runs off the night markets and is full of smokey street food stalls, we called it Meat Street because of all the meat skewers and dumplings we ate there. I truly think you know you've had a good holiday when by the end of it you have a 'guy', in New York it was 'Bagel Guy', Mykonos it was 'Spanikopita Yaiya' in LP it was our 'Dumpling Lady' and our 'Meat Guy'.

We made a friend <3

Oh hi tiny coconut pancakes in a little leaf basket. I love you. 

Dumpling Lady!

Meat Guy!

On our last morning we set our alarms super early to wake up and watch the procession of monks receive their alms - offerings from townspeople who get up every morning to hand out food to hundreds of monks. This collection forms the monks' daily meal and it was very moving to watch, even if we were a little hungover. It was completely silent except for a pack of dogs running up and down the street, humid and drizzling and we had to keep our distance and watch from across the road but it was a perfect way to finish our first trip to Luang Prabang.

We will pretty much be taking everyone who comes to visit us to LP, so look forward to meeting Meat Guy in the (sweaty) flesh. Ew.