Luang Prabang with the Family (and Mount Phousi)

This is kind of a belated post, as all of this happened before Angkor Wat/ Cambodia/ Vietnam with the family, but better late than never.

For Christmas vacation Nick and I met my family in Luang Prabang, which is a really beautiful city in northern Laos (way more picturesque than, say, Vientiane).

Luang Prabang was really cold (low 50's in the morning), which was crappy considering all of us had brought warm weather clothes.

We spent the first day exploring the city. In the middle of the town district there is a hill called "Mount Phousi". "Phousi" is pronounced "poo-see", so of course Max and Ollie were laughing every time we passed something named after the famous site- Phousi Hotel, Mt. Phousi, Phousi Stupa...

Along the trail to the top of Mount Phousi, there are Buddha figures, miniature caves, and women who sell these tiny sparrows in woven bamboo cages (I think we paid 10,000kip? so $1.20?) Once you arrive at the top, you can release the birds- and opening the cage without hurting the birds is way harder than you would think- but not before the sparrows crap all over your hand.

After our exploration of Mount Phousi, walking along the river and grabbing a couple of fruit shakes from a street vendor, we ate dinner at Tangor, which had really good French fusion-y food at around the same price you would pay in the States (aka more than $15/ person).

Some of the dishes we ordered came with rice, and at Tangor they take obvious pride in their presentation so each mound of rice was topped with a small red chili. This red chili is a garnish, not to be eaten, but Ollie thought he would be a bad ass so he ate it in one bite.

And ended up with eyes watering, gasping for a glass of milk from a waitress who was looking at him like he was a moron.

The next day the family all rented bicycles from a hostel along the main drag. We then biked to the bank of the Mekong River and took a ferry (10,000kip per person + bike, each direction) across, getting a bit of "local flavor" (ie getting SUPER lost on these dusty dirt roads). Also one of the bikes kept falling apart so every 10 minutes or so we had to go through the whole ordeal of fixing it. Or, rather, Nick, Max and Dad did, while Mom and I talked or took pictures.

Also Nick's birthday was December 23rd. I celebrated by buying him a light-up Santa hat and dragging him to a cooking class. 

Highly recommended cooking class at Tamarind. It was cold outside but the teacher was funny and the food was good. We learned a lot about cooking techniques and different local ingredients that the Lao cooks use to make their dishes. Also I discovered how much I love tamarind fruits (which look super weird)

Also this dog: (notice the blue eyebrows). What?

First (and last?) dinner at home

First off, I'm not a great cook. Esp since my mom is an incredible cook, so I never felt the need to cook as a kid, when awesome 4 course meals were a daily thing. That being said, I still kind of like to cook. I have recipes I like, I like to have friends over and cook for them from time to time, and find that I eat way healthier (not to mention cheaper!) when cooking at home.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE IN LAOS. Cooking is, putting it mildly, a pain in the ass. Not to mention SUPER expensive, if you want to cook western food. There's a noodle place across the street from work that you can buy two drinks and two great friend noodle dishes (with veggies and everything!) for like 40,000 kip. That's $5. 

Last night I made pasta carbonara and asparagus. The Parmesan cheese, asparagus and bacon were all super expensive, and I couldn't figure out the oven to make asparagus the way my mom taught me (so I boiled it, sorry mom!)

And after all the kitchen drama, with me yelling at nick to get out of my kitchen, or to come in and help me, or trying to figure out what inane system he has for storing stuff, and me fighting with the oven or burning myself on the weird stove... We had dinner:

IT WASNT EVEN THAT GOOD. It was fine, but you can go to the French restaurant downtown and get this for 60,000 kip a plate, which is like $9, and it's way better and probably cheaper.

So I might not be cooking again... 

Baking and oatmeal don't count.