One week later.

The jetlag has finally worn off - twelve hours is a much tough one to overcome. Let me tell you that there were a lot of early mornings and earlier nights this past week, but I successfully slept in today, for the first time since our return, and that makes me happy. Mario and I finally took down the tree, though we still have not given all our Christmas presents from the trip. I made sure to get a few more days in with our newest ornaments added, the tales of our most recent adventure.

The bowl of Pho that warmed us up on our first morning, and perked us up on our last. The aluminum elephant, made of recovered bombs in Laos, reminding us of our walk with the happy, free, elephants near Luang Prabang. The Thai bohdi tree leaf, made for writing wishing and prayers on, to be left at the White Temple in Chiang Rai, but that I stealthily snuck into my pocket when no one was looking. And the printed portrait of an Apsara, one of the female spirits that figures prominently on the inside and outside of the temple at Angkor Wat, a wooden magnet that will be transformed to hang from a tree branch. All memories, along with so many, many more, that I will hold dear from this adventure. So many new experiences, amazing people, delicious food and cultural knowledge that Mario and I have accumulated, and now hold dear. It's the wonderful thing about travel: it's sad to return, but you always come back changed, and always for the better, I think.















As always, thanks for following along - until next time.
















PS : We were destined to find hats this trip! The "group tour" hats were found discarded in a luggage cart outside Hanoi airport, so OF COURSE we had to take them home! Prepare for random group outings in the near future!!!

The long voyage home.

The number of photos I take is inversely proportional to the amount of enjoyment I am getting out of my day - or not. On a really good day, I can take upwards of 300 photos. Today, with all the airport time, flying, and general discomfort, I took NINE. And 7 of those were on Mario's phone. I didn't even have the energy, or the drive, to take out my camera.

The morning started out fine. Granted, the alarm going off at 2:30 am is a very rude awakening, but adrenaline tends to override that, as does a brisk walk in the cool morning air back to the airport that you can walk in and out of. Check-in is smooth, except for the fact that I neglected to do so online, so Mario and I are NOT sitting together, not even close, and we are both stuck in the middle seats of our respective rows. More on THAT later.

We enjoy one last big, steaming bowl of breakfast Pho, warm and aromatic, and the only place open this early in the morning. Heck, there's not even a place selling coffee! But really, Pho is my new breakfast favorite, and it will likely become part of the menu rotation once we get home, much to Mario's delight. And we luck out once again - our search for those conical bamboo hats, synonymous with Vietnam, proved fruitless last night(as I thought it would), and the sad reality is that none of the airport gift shops are open this early in the morning. Having lost all hope of bringing the elusive hats back home, we plunk down on chairs at a far-off gate in the airport, to watch some soccer highlight reruns. What do we spot not 2 rows behind us at the same empty gate, but TWO conical hats discarded on the chairs, likely by some gung-ho tourist who finally got tired of carrying the things around, and didn't want to have to deal with them as carry-on! But we don't mind carrying them! And snatch! Those hats are as good as ours!(Note that Mario and I DID wait an appropriate amount of time, just in case someone came back to reclaim the hats, but in an empty airport at 5:15 am, when your flight is the only one boarding, you don't have to wait THAT long before realizing NO ONE is coming back for them!)

The Hanoi-Beijing flight was pretty standard, no entertainment, one speedy in-flight meal, mostly sleeping passengers. The layover in Beijing was also pretty standard, though you do have to go through added security when entering China, regardless of whether you are actually ENTERING China by leaving the airport. Even transiting passengers have to go through security. And for anyone curious, NO, there was no additional screening for the CoronaVirus, which seems a little bizarre given all the publicity it is getting outside of China. I wonder if they are trying to keep it under wraps here, especially with all the travelling the upcoming Lunar New Year involves...

And now the flight to Montreal. In one word? HORRIBLE. Probably the worst I have experienced, and it's not even the longest I've flown! Being in the middle seat SUCKS. Luckily, I'm next to a woman who gets up probably 20 times during the flight, so when she rises, so do I. I stretch. I walk around. I go to the washroom, or to the galley for tea, for water, for snacks. I make my way up to Mario, 15 rows ahead of me, and chat, albeit briefly, as he too is stuck in the middle seat, between 2 backpackers who sleep like the dead. I move as much as I can, but 4 hours out I am so restless I just can't stand it.

Being apart from Mario sucks. Yes, we don't often talk on long-haul flights, each nestled snugly in our own bubbles, but the option is there. Also, there is so much more comfort is having some you KNOW next to you, as opposed to complete strangers. You can overflow(for lack of a better word) into the other person's space, and vice-versa. You can put the seat arm up, you can stretch out, you can overlap. I fell so stuck, so confined in what seems like the narrowest middle seat even. Ms. Aisle-seat is petite, and takes up little room, but it is Mr. Window-seat, Mr.I'm going-to-spread-out-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it that makes the flight so uncomfortable. Trying to watch movies, and remain in my bubble, is so very hard when he stretches his legs out so far, and so wide, that they take up half of MY leg space. He wears a winter coat for most of the flight, but takes it off 15 minutes in and just lets it drape all over MY space. And of course, forget about sharing the armrest! I just hold my arms into my chest and try not to move for most of the flight. And forget about sleeping! Mr. Windowseat insists on playing games that frustrate him, like solitaire and Mahjong, and every time he makes a move he is unhappy with(all of them), he lets his hand fall dejectedly on his leg, which is also halfway on MY leg. Wakes me up EVERY TIME.

I practically jump out of my seat as soon as we touch down, and after the LONGEST taxing EVER, the door opens, the people get up, and I RUN out of the plane as fast as I can to Mario, who is waiting for me. Oh, and I remember to take those bamboo cone hats, too. Needless to say, I got no work done on plane, though with 13 hours of flight, I really should have, so the blog was a long time in ending. But here it is, finally at its conclusion. And what have I learned from all of it? Remember to check in early dammit.

Return to Hanoi

Today, we return from whence we came, back to Hanoi, and the start of the eventual long haul back home...but not yet. Our flight doesn't leave Luang Prabang until 5:30 tonight, so that gives Mario and I ONE MORE DAY to enjoy Laos. One more day to soak up as much of sunny Laos as we can before heading back to the smoggy big city and then snowy home. But first, time to look at my backpack woefully, and start the great re-packing of everything for the flights. We organize and stuff, re-organize, trade heavier items for lighter items and vice-versa, plan out our clothes for the next 48 hours which we tuck on the top of our bags, making sure we don't have to undo all that hard work for a forgotten pair of socks tomorrow. And then breakfast, a slice of vanilla cake with homemade sweetened yogurt, a plate of scrambles eggs, toasted baguette with butter and kiwi jam, a dish of fresh fruit, a strong coffee - mornings have been one of my favorite parts of this hotel, of every hotel on this trip. Every place had a great breakfast and my days have been better because of such a wonderful start. I love southeast Asia.
Since we'll be sitting in a cramped airplane for 1+5+13 hours total, not to mention the waiting time in the airports, now is the time to do nothing else but WALK. Stretch our legs as much as possible and tire them out, so that all of the obligatory sitting will be welcome. We walk up our quiet little alleyway, away from the river and into town. We walk to the Wat across the street, that we have passed on numerous occasions but never gone in to visit. We walk clockwise around the main temple, as it represents the course of the life of Buddha, admiring the architecture and the surrounding statues. We walk past the monks' living quarters, orange robes hanging out to dry in the sun, brooms lined up on balconies, balls of rice stuck on a stupa as offerings. Piles of ants enjoy the feast.
We walk to the largest grocery store in town for a few last-minute souvenirs, bags of coffee, and cold tea to fuel our meanderings. Further up the side of sacred Mount Phusi, we walk to the TAEC, Traditional Arts & Etnology Centre, a museum showcasing the history of clothing and artisan crafts of the various tribes of Laos. Inside, we admire the handicraft, weaving and sewing, use of colourful dyes and fabrics, and the subtle differences that distinguish each tribe from the next. We listen to music instruments and traditional song, recognizing the knene from Garavek, and other instruments we have run across during our adventures here. Needless to say, the shop at the end of the museum offers some beautiful handicrafts, much more hand-made than what we have seen in the night market, and with all the support the museum is giving back to these people, we have a hard time only picking one or two pieces to bring home!

We walk back into town, to the food market, where another tasty chicken baguette with chili sauce and cilantro fuels the rest of our day. We walk along the water, where tuk-tuk drivers offers rides, and boat captains offer rides, and scooter renters offers rides, and still we walk on. One important note for anyone travelling in Laos - the vendors here are very much NOT pushy in their sales tactics. Unlike other parts of the world, where you might feel almost PUSHED into a shop, or get insulted for not considering a service offered, the Lao simple ask once, often very gently, and then back off immediately when answered with a polite, "No, thank you". It is so very welcome, that I am often taken aback when they don't persist in trying to sell me something!

Past the Mekong, we walk back along the Nam Khan riverside, past sleepy Wat Sopsickaram, where rice "cakes" have been fashioned and left in the sun to dry every day that we have been here. I think this must be the leftover rice from the morning's meal, or possibly what was received during the giving of the alms ceremony pre-dawn. Regardless, these large, flat cakes of sticky rice are lined up on bamboo racks, and left high on a wall in the sun, drying out for storage, I'm guessing. Having seen(and eaten) them, I think the cakes are then fried in oil to puff the rice, making the galette very light and crispy, and very good with spicy dips and sauces. We walk past Le Banneton, serving what is reportedly the BEST pain au chocolat in the city, and stop in for a moment to cool off with an iced coffee. The chocolate pastries are all sold out.

The sun in getting lower in the sky, and so we walk back to Cold River Guesthouse one last time, to collect our bags and transit to the nearby Luang Prabang International airport. We are suddenly blown away by so many groups of young monks, easy to spot in their saffron-orange robes, walking back from school into downtown Luang Prabang. With more than 30 monasteries in such a small area, and a reported 1500(!) monks, there are bound to be plenty of school-aged monks-in-training, and we are seeing all of them returning from their studies right now. We even catch sight of a taxi pick-up filled with a mass of orange robes ahead of us, likely driving a group to one of the farther monasteries. What a sight!
We walk into tiny Luang Prabang airport, through security, through customs, and get stamped out of the country. It's official - we have begun the long, long trip home. The short hop to Hanoi is easy : we board a prop plane from the tarmac as the sun goes down behind us, and the plane barely hits cruising altitude before we begin our descent into Vietnam. Would you believe, even in that short time, the in-flight crew serve us a MEAL? We are handed a paper package containing a tasty sandwich, an oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie, and are offered a drink service ON TOP of that! Eat your heart out, Air Canada, Lao Airlines has you beat on ALL the important stuff.

Get this: we WALK out of Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport, along perfectly smooth, paved walkways, to the strip of airport hotels about 15 minutes away, to our home for the night. When I was booking this last stop months ago, it seemed a little implausible that we would be able to walk to our hotel, and I was sure we would have to take a taxi when actually here. I mean, how many airports do you know of, big international ones, that you can just walk out of and not be presented with inaccessible 10-lane highways? In Hanoi, you can, and so we did, even crossing on of those 10-lane highways the same way we crossed every other road in Vietnam - slowly, at a constant speed, and without hesitation. It worked.

One last walk before trying to get some sleep: we walk out of Chio hotel and apartments, which proves to be a very clean and lovely airport hotel, especially for the price I paid. We walk along the road that runs parallel to the airport, its bright lights glowing in the distance. We are on one last mission : the great search for a Vietnamese coffee filter. Close to the hotel, we find nothing but restaurants and karaoke bars, but I expect nothing else, since overnight travelers to Hanoi, staying at an airport hotel are only looking for a good meal and a little entertainment, not coffee filters, right? The offerings thin out, and we soon find ourselves walking next to dark agricultural fields - maybe rice, maybe something else. Maybe it is time to give up the search - maybe it is hopeless. But I see more lights in the distance, not too far and still on the same straight road running parallel to the airport. We walk on.

Soon, more shops appear, more food options, a market, a pharmacy, a flower shop - and we realize we have re-entered a lived-in neighborhood. We begin scanning shop fronts for signs of kitchenware, of cooking tools, anything. Mario pulls out a photo he took while we were cruising through Halong Bay, when he fell in love with Vietnamese coffee. One shop owner recognizes the devices, has none - but she points us in the right direction. The next shop over proves to be the answer, as an old woman and her grand-daughter look at the photo, dive into what seems like Alibaba's cavern of hidden treasures, and return victorious with the small silver filter in hand! Mission Complete!
We walk all the way back to hotel, stopping once for a meal of rotisserie duck, and again for late-night snacks from a man who looks like he raided an old pharmacy to set up his little shop. Bags of chips and bottle of drink are lined up neatly behind the sliding doors of glass cabinets, which he gingerly pulls open one by one to offer us still more snack items(you want...Oreos?). With that, we walk back, I try to blog, Mario tries to read, we try to sleep, knowing that our 3 am wake-up will come way too soon.

Exploring Luang Prabang

Sometimes, you gotta just go with the flow. This trip, wanting to cram as much experiences in to our limited time as possible, we have barely stopped and taken the time to smell the flowers, so to speak. Well, unless you count that time in Chiang Rai, with the festival...but I digress. This morning, we realized that this trip is rapidly approaching its end, and we haven't stopped moving. Through an error in booking, we are being forced to change rooms in our luxe little guesthouse on the river, so we took advantage of the check-out time to take our time. We don't bother re-packing our stuff, just throw it all in duffles for the short trip to the next room. We laze around at breakfast, Mario giving the noodle soup a try(it's no Pho, but it's good), while I stick to the tried-and-true scrambled eggs with toasted baguette. We peruse the tour book, looking at what we *could* visit, but don't HAVE to, necessarily. We chat with Blue Jayson, who has joined us in the outside dining area, and trade ideas for things to do on our last day. He has more time here to see, do and visit - something we wish WE did, as Mario and I are slowly falling in love with Luang Prabang. This town has quickly become our favorite place of the trip, and will likely be the first place we return to next time.
Sometime around 11, we make our way downstairs with all of our accumulated stuff from the last 3 weeks, preparing to deposit it for the day while our new room is readied. Turns out, a large group of French tourists checked out early this morning, and the rooms are already available, so we get turned around and sent straight to our new home for the night! Such luck - we won't have to make our way back to hotel later on to check in and move our things, allowing us to spend ALL of our remaining time wandering around the city. Which is exactly what we do.

One of the main reasons we laze around at the hotel all morning, besides the check-out/check-in non-event, is to make it to Tamarind restaurant for their 11 o'clock opening so we can sign up for yet ANOTHER cooking class! Yup, if you've been following along, this will be our FOURTH one of the trip(if you count the one on the boat in Halong Bay) and will cover cuisines from ALL the countries we have set foot in. Technically, we did not take a class in Thailand, but when we last visited in 2007, Mario and I enjoyed an all-day lesson at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, so we've got Thai cuisine covered. We have since been cooking the most authentic Pad Thai and Green Chicken Curry at home - and can get all of the local ingredients at OUR local asian grocer. Regardless, we are looking forward to delving into the wonders of Lao cuisine, which so far has consisted of sandwiches with sweet chili sauce, or food on a grill, so some more traditional fare would a be a welcome change!

Speaking of sandwiches, we make our way through town to the central post office to mail another postcard, and head across the street to the food market to indulge in - you guessed it - chicken sandwiches with sweet chili sauce! They are very good, though, well-balanced with creamy avocado and fresh cilantro, piled onto tender baguettes, which are excellent in Laos. And very filling - these sandwiches will easily get us through the afternoon, until our evening cooking class. If you are in Luang Prabang, and are looking for a tasty lunch(or dinner), head to the food market stalls on the right side when you are facing the main stage. The Hmong "healtea" shop is right next to the HATO Taiwanese bubble tea place - it is our go-to place, and makes GREAT baguette sandwiches, very similar in style to the Banh Mi in Vietnam.

Stomachs full of tasty baguette, we walk around the city in search of interesting sites. First, we head to the centrally-located Imperial Palace museum, once the home of the royal family of Laos. Since they were deposed in the late 1970s, the palace has been donated to the country, and converted into a museum, preserving some of the charm and splendor it once held while house the head of state and generations before him. One room is filled with large, flat settees, great for lounging and staring up at the frescoed walls, depicting scenes of Laotian daily life. The french artist commissioned to do the work, Alix de Fauntereaum has a similar style to Paul Gaughin, known for his work of Tahitian women, full of colours, heavy on the green so present in tropical settings. Apparently, his scenes in this room follow the path of the sun, each painting depicting a certain time of day, and the natural light streaming in the large windows will illuminate the piece at the SAME time! It seems like quite the undertaking!

Next door is the coronation room, redone for the intended coronation of the last King. The walls are red, and covered in glass mosaics depicting Lao folk stories, similar to ones we heard at the Traditional storytelling last night. The scenes are all jumbled together, though, so try as we might, neither Mario nor I could pick out any that we had heard. Other coronation relics are peppered around the room in presentation cases, as are many different styles of Buddhas in many different materials, salvaged from temples and caves around the country.

We wander through the rest of the palace, admiring the simplicity of the bedrooms, the contrast between the super-high ceilings and rather short furniture, which seems so out of place. We admire the displays of gifts from visiting countries, on show in the secretary's reception room, and are caught by the fact that a simple blown glass plate, red and gold in colour, happens to be a gift from Canada. It's nice to find this tie here, both to us and the country we come from, so far away from us and yet sitting right in front of us.

Outside, the large garage houses the "fleet" of royal cars - all 5 of them. The royal family, it turns out, liked big American boat cars, Lincoln Continentals, and were often gifted them by the US. There is an old black Citroen in the corner, one of the first royal vehicles, and a wooden speedboat. Outside, two golden barges for current religious ceremonies are getting a cleaning for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, and an old, dilapidated grey Peugeot sinks into the ground, though it is likely NOT one of the royal cars!

After collecting our shoes, and our bags, and our cameras(here, EVERYTHING has to go into a locker, and it was quite the runaround to figure it all out, let me tell you!), we continue our walk through the town. Next stop? Wat Xieng Thong, the largest and most well-known monastery in a city that is seemingly full of them. The main hall is full of more beautiful mosaics, the walls telling the stories of Laos, and some of them here we CAN pick out from our evening of story-telling at Garavek.
There are several other beautiful buildings scattered around the grounds, but our attention is grabbed by one in particular. While similar on the outside, inside we find a carrying barge for a Buddha statue located on sight, some plywood signs scattered about, wooden Buddha images in varying states of decay, small glass cabinets laying empty of their contents, a bundle of brooms, a shop-vac...if I didn't know any better, I'd say that this place is the storage shed of Xieng Thong! It's so curious to see all of these other buildings being well-presented, clean and cared for, and then step foot in something that looks like the door was shut and the contents forgotten for the past 30 years! At least, that's what the cobwebs tell me!

As the sun begins to set over the city, Mario and I make our way back to Tamarind restaurant, for our evening cooking class. A taxi pick-up gathers us all together(11 of us for tonight's class), and out of the city we drive, down bumpy gravel roads to Tamarind's lakeside garden and pavilion for an beautiful outdoor experience. Under the superior tutelage of our instructor, Sit, and his assistant, superhero Mr. Sa, we learn the about the simple-to-make, yet complexly-flavoured, dishes that make up Lao cuisine.
Before us, platters of ingredients are overflowing with fragrant lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, spicy chilies, fresh bouquets of cilantro and sweet basil and green onions, are gathered from the gardens behind our cooking stations. Sit pulls out large cards listing the ingredients, hinting at the dishes to come. Just behind him lies another area filled with charcoal-fueled clay stoves, awaiting eggplants and tomatoes that need charring, banana leaves that need softening.
We fly through a whole meal's worth of preparations: First up, Jeow, a classic Lao chili dip based on either eggplant or tomato, but heavy of the spice, and apparently served with EVERY meal in Laos. Having eaten nothing but sandwiches thus far, Mario and I have not had the pleasure of tasting this sauce yet, so we pound away at the ingredients in our giant mortar, anxious to make a new discovery. The dip is then eaten with sticky rice, fashioned first into little balls by hand, thumb pressed in to make an indent, and then dipped into the sauce like a little scoop. REAL meals in Laos are always served with a bamboo basket of sticky rice, and the entire meal eaten by hand using this same scooping technique - we are only just now discovering this! It certainly encourages a much more relaxed, more familial atmosphere for meals!
Next, Mok Pa, a herb-marinated fish steamed in banana leaves, the flavours reminiscent of the fish Amok curry that we had in Siem Reap. Again using our trusty mortar and pestle, we grind up herbs and chili and shallot into a paste, and use this paste to marinate pieces of white fish - snapper, in our case. Twenty minutes later, this fish, along with the marinade, is pilled high into banana leaves. It is folded into little packages, tied with care, and placed into a steamer to infuse the fish with even more flavour.
We stuff lemongrass with flavourful minced chicken, which sounds impressively complicated, and I assure you that it IS impressively complicated, too. Probably not something I will replicate at home, even though the stuffed stems, bulging with the meat, dipped in egg and then fried until crispy, are quite something to behold. I've been told that they can also may be grilled on the BBQ, so if you come by sometime in the summer, you might be drawn in by the delicious smell of Mario and I grilling up stuffed lemongrass...
Finally, the classic mango-sticky rice, ubiquitous in this area of the world, each country we have visited adding their own spin to the dessert. Tamarind's version is made with black(or purple) sticky rice, steamed and then cooked again with sweetened coconut milk, which we steep and squeeze ourselves from freshly-grated coconut. To this pudding-like dessert, we add a spoonful of house-made tamarind jam, fresh fruits and toasted sesame seeds. We take our garnished bowls to the communal dining table, where all of our hard work is laid out to feast on, both with our eyes and our bellies.
The staff at the Tamarind Gardens have also prepared typical Lao dishes to add to the spread: Bamboo Soup, a minced Buffalo and Herb Salad, and stir-fried Young Pumpkin with kaffir lime and ginger. With our baskets of sticky rice to scoop everything up, we eat to our hearts' content, and then some, and still the table seems untouched, there is so much food. We wash everything down with a bottle of Beer Lao, our drink of choice in Luang Prabang. We are full and happy and satisfied, and content at the knowledge we have acquired tonight, and the tasty food that came with it. I always believe that the best way to understand a country's culture is through its food, and the best way to understand a country's food is through a cooking class. I go home happy(though let me tell you, that really bumpy road back to town was no fun on a full stomach!).

Walking with Elephants!

Twelve years ago, when Mario and I first traveled to Southeast Asia, we had the chance to take a 3-day trek through the hill-tribe villages of Thailand, which included a ride on an elephant. At the time, we thought this was the coolest thing EVER, along with just about ever other experience we had during that 3-week trip. Elephant-trekking has since become a slightly more frowned-upon activity, and the creation of elephant sanctuaries, where the primary goal is the happiness of the animal, and NOT the tourists, are becoming the norm. That's not to say that there are not STILL elephant-riding camps out there, and easily accessible, too, but people look at you a little differently when you say you've gone to Southeast Asia to ride the elephants.

Once upon a time, Laos was known as the land of one million elephants. Those numbers have decreased exponentially, and for one main reason: the elephants are dying more than they are being born. This is incredibly problematic because it leads to a small gene pool, and a small population leads to in-breading, and weaker generations of elephants. One of the main goals of the elephant sanctuaries is to encourage breeding between domesticated elephants(the rescued ones) and wild elephants that still roam the remote jungles of Laos. They are hoping to produce a stronger generation of elephants to help with the re-population of the species, and with a gestation period of 22 months per calf, the process will take a while.

We chose to spend our day with Mandalao, one of the most reputable elephant sanctuaries in Luang Prabang. Our activities are based around the elphants' schedule and their well-being, since happy elephants are healthy elephants. We are introduced to two older females, and given bunches of fingers bananas and sticks of sugar cane to bribe them. The adage when it comes to elephants is "NO FOOD, NO FRIEND," and this is especially true of our two graceful grey beasts. They gently remove the snacks from our outstretched hands, drooling on us in return, and as soon as they realize we have nothing left, they are no longer interested, moving on the next person with food. Now, I say snack, because this is essentially what we are giving them - a large basket of bananas and an armful of sugarcane do not an elephant feed. They will eat AT LEAST 250 kg of food each day, so what we are doing is basically teasing them!


The day continues in much the same manner: the elephants go for a walk in the jungle, snacking on trees and plants along the way. We walk with them, leading, following, moving out of the way, stopping for them when they eat. We arrive at a small camp halfway through the day, and the elephants are given several banana TREES to munch on. Afterwards, they head to a small watering hole to splash in the mud - elephant sunscreen and bug spray, we are told. While they eat and play, we have our lunch, a Lao feast packaged in banana leaves, and our guide, Noi, shows us how to eat with our fingers and make balls of sticky rice. It is the most delicious picnic in the jungle I have ever had.

We finish lunch and take a small walk through the jungle to a nearby village, and then to two small waterfalls, while the elephants are resting. There has been no rain for a month and a half, so the waterfalls are more like trickles - not very impressive. In the village, we sit with some of the locals while Noi, talks of daily life of the Hmong who live here. We look on as one man builds a new home on the outskirts of the village, brick and mortar with handmade wooden doors, while he is surrounded by bamboo and thatch huts. We ask Noi what the people think of his undertaking. The other people want to know who this fancy guy is, in here and building his fancy brick house. As we sit listening to Noi, one of the older women points to my skin and compares it with her deep colouration - we both laugh, because even after 3 weeks in the sun, I am still white as snow compared to her dark brown tint. It's funny how you never really need words to communicate.

Back at the elephant camp, we begin the walk back with our two pachyderm guides. They continue to rip vines from trees and shred leaves from branches as we go, one even removing an entire tree as though is was a toothpick, and happily walking up the path like a dog with a bone. It has been an awesome day, but we have to part ways, so we get one last chance to pet and hug and be with the gentle giants, and then its back to the city.

Our evening is, funnily enough, more strenuous than our jungle trek with elephants. We climb to the top of sacred Mount Phousi(pronounced Pou-see), to visit the temple and see the sun setting over the Mekong. All 290-something steps. Turns out, that half of the tourists in the city have the same idea, and the sunset is hazy and non-existent, so we head back down. On our descent, we pass a sign advertising traditional Lao storytelling, starting in 30 minutes. We high-tail it across town to the rather intimate venue. Here, we are entertained by the storytelling of a very energetic young man, accompanied by an older musician who is playing a khene, a traditional Lao bamboo mouth organ. The show, Garavek, is excellent, and anyone coming to Luang Prabang should go see it, as they have a performance every night.

We found ourselves back in the night market again, finishing our long and eventful day with more delicious food, this time from one of the street vendors, spicy Luang Prabang sausage and chicken cooked on a giant bamboo skewer. This place is growing on me - I don't know if I will want to leave.