Saturday March 2, Laos Countryside
Many different things seen today. We started with a visit to a country village where the local blacksmith showed us his wares. For some reason Alice thought a bamboo buffalo bell would make a nice wind chime, so we bought one. The blacksmith had an impressive collection of knives but the thought of running one through customs dismayed us.
That was in the Lao village. On the other side of the schoolyard was a Hmong village and we stopped to look in a typical home.
A cow was sequestered in a very small stall with an impressive salad in the window box for her to nibble on.
All important possessions were inside a one-room house about 20×20.
This was the bed all the children slept in.
Poor is not the word for most people in Laos, particularly in the country. They earn enough to eat but not much more and have no reserves in case of illness or injury. A motorbike is a major major investment.
Next stop – elephants – an elephant protection organization with baskets of food for $3.
Look! Heffalumps!
The food basket held those small sweet bananas, as well as sugar cane and bamboo. The elephants cheerfully accepted it all.
And up the road it was Save the Bears. These were Asian Black Bears, smaller than ours and arboreal by preference.
Lastly before lunch it was the Kuang Si Waterfall Park. We started at the bottom and climbed past small falls and emerald pools to get to the Big Kahuna.
At the time we thought the small stuff was about it.
But in the next set of pools swimming was taking place. This particular nymph might have been doing a portfolio – she made a quarter turn, held it, turned again with a different pose, etc. If there was a professional photographer he was hidden by everyone else firing away with their camera or cell phone.
Approaching the top.
This the widest spread of the falls; they actually go higher but are hidden by the trees. I don’t know how well the photo does, but these falls were beautiful.
We then walked back down the hill by another route and eventually came to a really well-situated restaurant (Carpe Diem if you’re ever there) with the river continuing right next to them.
The food was pretty good. Pumpkin soup (9/10) with red hot chile peppers optional.
Tilapia filet with lemon sauce (9/10). The banana leaf concealed steamed rice.
Not pictured: shrimp ravioli with lemongrass sauce and Parmesan (9/10). Why no photo? Although the dish looked fine in real life, the photo made it look like the dog’s breakfast. Never had that happen before.
Also not pictured: chocolate mousse with coconut at the bottom (8/10) in a really tiny shot glass. Actually it was more like chocolate sauce than mousse, so a one point deduction.
And that was our half-day trip. We rested up at out hotel and then went out for dinner.
And now we come to the part where Gordon Ramsay has a coronary and drops dead at our feet. All through our stay in Laos the food service has been, um, not ready for prime time (except for earlier this afternoon). Our first night in the hotel we ordered a mango smoothie and a mai tai. 20 minutes later no drinks. It’s not as if there was a crowd but somehow the drinks just didn’t get made. Finally they came, beating the dinner order by a couple of minutes.
At breakfast next morning it took forever to get someone to take our order. Coffee not offered even then.
So here we are at the Three Nagi which our guide had recommended to the point of pre-ordering the main dishes and dessert. We sat down and immediately (30 seconds) Alice and I got our main dish. It took 10 minutes to get someone to take a drink order. Unfortunately the special fish dish was virtually tasteless (5/10) and so was the sauce. I didn’t know you could do that. Alice saved her fish with a donation of coconut soup from one of our neighbors. Dessert was mango and mango sauce over sticky rice, with coconut ice cream (7/10). Really not sure what rice adds to the dish.
Consistently everyone is nice and polite but sometimes things take a long time to happen (or they jump the gun) – not familiar with the concept of restaurant management. Oh well, small stuff really.
We passed on the option to visit the night market and took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel.
Port Out, Starboard Home 