Laos: Luang Prabang Pt 1

July 20: Luang Prabang

We woke up stupid early to catch the first flight of the day, from Yangon to Bangkok. After grabbing our bags, going through customs, getting a silly passport stamp, and waiting a few hours, we caught the second flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang. Such a little airport!

I was dead set on finding a place with a kitchen we could use; I was ready to cook for myself again. Huzzah for AirBnb! We had a fantastic host, Sue, at Greenhouse Villa & Studio. We rented the Studio, which was absolutely perfect for two people.

Sue arranged for a car to pick us up from the airport and Toui to show us around the place. Toui owns a cafe and homestay across the river, on the Luang Prabang side. Unexpectedly, there was a fresh loaf of bread, a basket of fruit, and a dozen eggs in the fridge. Awesome! We decided to have eggs and toast for dinner and take advantage of the INCREDIBLE wifi by streaming Netflix. Whoa.


July 21: Luang Prabang

Holy poop, it's so damn hot. We slept in quite late, had toast with peanut butter for breakfast, and decided to find somewhere to get laundry done. Note to self: find somewhere to do laundry before walking around with 7kg of dirty, smelly clothes under your arm and on your back. Lesson learned.

We took the clothes back to the Studio and went the other direction in search of laundry. Well, we found it, and kept on wandering a bit but then decided that soaking our clothes with sweat meant that it was time to head back to air conditioning.

Around 4 we chose to get groceries. This involved crossing the scariest bridge I can ever remember crossing. We took the pedestrian portion of a motorcycle-only wooden bridge and I thought the beams would break under me a lot of the time. Eep!

We were hoping that the night market would include fruit and vegetable stands, but no. So, we went to a grocery store and bought a whole bunch of stuff. I wanted a stirfry with no onions or spice and vegetables that I actually like. I may have gone a little overboard on the groceries :s

Twas a glorious dinner of rotini pasta with tomato sauce and a stirfry (with very little oil, which is rare here) filled with snap peas, cauliflower, broccoli, and tuna. The tuna added a lot of salt, and I wouldn't do it again, but meat is hard to find and there's no hot water to clean stuff so I did not want to cut chicken.


July 22: Luang Prabang

We took our laundry to be done and then went to a place near us for breakfast. I was waiting for a CISV friend from Myanmar who happened to be in Luang Prabang and Andy was waiting for a high school friend, Emily, who teaches English in a nearby village.

We spent the day hanging out with Emily at the Studio, though Andy sucks at taking photos, and then she took us to her favourite spots for dinner and drinks. We experienced another version of very spicy Pad Thai at Bamboo Garden and then tried some very strange mixed drinks at Lao Lao. The white wine, however, was excellent.

Luang Prabang has a curfew of midnight, so most places shut down around 11:30. The one place that undoubtedly stays open late is the bowling alley, for tourists ... but travelers must make sure that their hostels/guest houses will let them in after midnight; some shut their doors and then you're SOL. We left Lao Lao at 11:30 and play Rock, Paper, Scissors with a Tuk Tuk driver to negotiate the price: hilarious, unexpected, and Emily had never experienced that before. Twas glorious.


July 23: Luang Prabang

We were on a mission to find Emily some work clothes before she caught a bus back to the village. I wanted new sunglasses because mine got scratched up. Again. So, naturally, I had some fun with kiddie glasses.

We spent the evening making plans for Laos and watching Netflix.


July 24: Luang Prabang

We spent the morning packing up and then moved to a hostel on the town-side of the river. It was a very good move. We hung out in the air conditioning for the hottest part of the day; I uploaded a bunch of pictures and then we went wandering around the old town.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it's very cute. There are various Buddhist temples all over the place and tonnes of monks and monklings (novice monks) walk the streets. Plus, it's got France written all over it; yay, colonialism! [sarcasm]

A little history: French colonizers were probably the best colonizers one could have aka lesser of the evils. So, Laos got a bit of a break and were able to keep more of their culture than many other countries seem to have been able to. That being said, there is very little Laotian history available. They wiped it out. Seriously.

Fun fact: Laos = the country, Lao = people and language. The more you know!

We went to Toui's Cafe for dinner and I had a Thai milk tea with gin. FANTASTIC.

July 25: Luang Prabang

Ock Pop Tok! We spent the day dyeing and weaving. It was friggin fantastic. First, we were picked up in the prettiest Jeep I've ever seen:

We arrived in a picturesque Living Arts Space. Check it out: https://ockpoptok.com/

While waiting for our day to begin, we chilled in the cafe and were served Bael fruit tea. It was nice. Then, our guide/teacher for the day, Oun, collected us and took the class (all two of us) on a tour of the place. First stop: the process of getting silk from silk worms, and their life cycle. We saw yellow and white cocoons, and learned that the cocoons are boiled with the worms/almost butterflies inside so that the long threads are not broken when they burrow out.

We were taken on a tour of the 24 Master looms, 20 of whom were working then. Their patterns were incredible. Some of them take 2 weeks to make the pattern alone, then another several weeks (I imagine) to create the piece. They were making tapestries, table runners, and clothing. You can see what they make on the website.

We got to choose which colours we wanted our skeins to be, and then started the dying process!

They trusted us with machetes ... I'm chopping Sappan for pink, Andy's got Teak for silver. 

Indigo hangs out in clay pots, and then you get to dunk in your skein and squidge it around for several minutes. 

As we waited for our skeins to dry, we spun pre-dyed thread into bobbins that we would use for our placemats.

We started weaving, then took a break for lunch. It was vegetarian and delicious. Andy tried silk worm poo tea, literally poo in a tea bag, and I had a great soy latte. Then we went back to the weaving for 2.5 hours. Andy is wicked fast; I imagine it has something to do with his giant toes, and thus his ability to switch the bamboo foot pedals quickly.

The shuttle, with two bobbins that I spun, is in my right hand. The pattern is the white strings!  

Andy adjusts the beam between the black threads to separate the pattern. I kept forgetting the beam and it turned into a running joke. 

Our backs were very sore by the end, and we were grateful for the helpers and Master weaver. I highly recommend this class/day/place for anyone who visits Luang Prabang. It's glorious.

And here are the finished products! We each have 3 skeins of dyed silk thread, most of which are way darker than we were expecting ha. Andy made the first placemat, with a Naga theme; I made the easier one.

We were exhausted by the end of the course, so ate at Bamboo Garden right beside our hostel. Cheap and super convenient. Then we packed up and passed out.