Bowling and cooking

Trip Start May 06, 2007
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Trip End Jul 24, 2008

Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Monday, February 25, 2008

Still swaying from the boat I grabbed some dinner and walked around the night market a bit. After I had seen enough souvenirs I headed back to my guesthouse and spent some time hanging out in the backyard with four Aussie boys who were playing a couple of guitars. The next day I started exploring. Luang Prabang is a nice town with a lot of French colonial styling (the French were obviously quite influential when they ruled Laos). I spent my first full day just exploring the town. I spent some time walking through a couple of different markets - one with crafts and another with food - and also spent time walking along the river. I met up with Deanna in the afternoon and she and I signed up for a cooking class the next day.

That evening I had dinner with the Aussie boys. After dinner we decided to head over to the bowling alley, the place to hang out at night in Luang Prabang for both falangs (foreigners) and locals. It also happens to be the only place open after 11:30pm because of a little loophole in the Laos curfew laws. We arrived around 10pm and there were only a couple of other falangs there, but by 11:30pm the tides had changed and the place was full of drunk backpackers. I was sad that my favorite bowler, an older man wearing white shorts pulled up high above his waist, a yellow polo shirt, and very large, round glasses with thick, black frames who was very energetic when he had a good roll, left without any fanfare. After finishing up our sugary, sweet, "American-style" popcorn (really gross stuff), we ended up leaving around midnight.

My cooking class the next day was good, but not great. Although they advertised that they could adapt to vegetarians, all that really meant was that they'd give you tofu to use instead of meat. The instructors were not at all helpful in replacing fish sauce or oyster sauce. Thanks to my Thai cooking class I knew what substitutions I should make, but they unfortunately did not have all of the ingredients, so I got a bit creative. But I did learn a couple of good tips (did you know that if you put a few whole chili peppers in a dish to cook they will add flavor but not spice?) and the three of us in the class had a lot of fun. Laos food uses similar ingredients as Thai food, but combines them differently and uses slightly different cooking techniques (less stir-frying and more simmering).

Although I was too stuffed from class to eat dinner that night, I met up with the Aussie boys for some more bowling. We learned our lesson on buying popcorn the previous night and just stuck to bowling. I surprisingly did really well in my first game, even rolling three strikes. After our second game we decided to call it an early night. I would have loved to spend more time hanging out in Luang Prabang and exploring some of the sites a bit outside of town, but I actually have a deadline to make now - March 15th in Shanghai to meet my parents and there are a couple of places I want to see in China first. In keeping with my self-imposed schedule, I needed to leave after two days to head north toward the border with China.
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