Luang Prabang - Thailand and Laos - Part 7

Our trip through the Mekong at times felt like we were heading further and further into the hinterlands. The rural villages and simple way of life on display - smallholder agriculture, artisanal fishing - seemed to be taking as further from the swanky resorts on the Thailand side. Laos is a much poorer country than Thailand. Even when we arrived to the beautiful hillside hotel that catered to foreign tourists such as ourselves, I could tell the food had come down a notch. The nearby village looked like a hard place to make a living.

 

Getting to Luang Prabang felt like suddenly landing back in the land of high-end tourism.

 

Rollin’ on the river - Thailand and Laos - Part 6

Our New Year’s Eve celebrations was a large buffet style dinner at a hotel resort in Chiang Rai, a few hours north of Chiang Mai near the border with Laos. We had been watching traditional performances of dancing and drumming by local youth troops who were quite compelling. An ongoing raffle doled out free nights to the resort that we would almost certainly never return to. The night mostly consisted of a steady stream of jokes about the house band, Dang Fantastic, a dad band dream team that struggled to play in time to an awkwardly arranged set list that killed the New Year’s Eve vibe with numbers like “Yesterday” and “I Did it My Way.”

At some point during dinner, someone tossed out a question.

“What are we going to do for sixteen hours on a boat?”

Alms for the auburn army - Thailand and Laos - Part 5

It was 6 AM and 50 degrees out. The steam from the container of sticky rice was enough to slightly warm my hand and inflate the plastic glove I was wearing. We were cold.  

'More spicy, more sexy’ - The food - Thailand and Laos Part 4

The instructions came fast and furious. Chop the sweet chili. Smash the garlic. Mash the paste. Add it to the chicken. Add the bird eye chili - two for mild, four for medium, six for Thai style. “More spicy, more sexy!” intoned our instructor Satang, who seemed like a cross between a DJ and a cross fit trainer.