you remember, back in 1995, the news of the arrest of Luis Roldan in a country called Laos? That was the first time (and I think of many) that I heard about the existence of that country. Now that we know, it seems a good place to get lost.
Its capital, Vientiane, is Pequenho compared with any of the other capitals of Southeast Asia. Is manageable and can be covered easily on foot or by bike. Since the arrival we liked the quiet cadence of the country and people supersonriente and nothing heavy with tourists (logically, you try to sell things, but do not insist and all with a big smile).
The city has many places to visit but the most we taste, surprisingly, was the food. Espanha Normally you can find Thai and Vietnamese restaurants but Laotian cuisine is not known and from that claimed here.
start with the "laap", one of the most famous dishes of the country, which is a sort of cold salad with lots of vegetables: lemmongrass, cilantro, scallions, lime juice, ... and some minced meat can be chicken, buffalo, pork or fish or tofu .... deliciosooo! Another dish we loved was called "Paa sam lot" and is nothing more than a fish from the Mekong River and fried batter with a tamarind sauce amazing (to think again I drool.) All this down to Beerlao, national pride and one of the few products exported from Laos. Very close to our untrained palates Mahou beer.
Visiting the temples of the city center we met with monks and school Ninh very outgoing, with four words and a smile made you feel welcome. Perhaps the monument furthest from the center of the city is the Pha That Luang stupa, but it's worth going up there because it is the most important of Laos and has a ceiling covered with gold foil awesome.
From Vientiane we moved north to Vang Vieng, this is a very interesting as it explains what a poorly managed tourism can make an unbeatable natural setting. Pequenho turns out that this village has a beautiful Mountains around and a couple of rivers where rafting can be done. The fact is that it became fashionable to do "tubing in the river (in short, drop sitting on a tire and let the current drag into town.)
Subsequently, some clever watching the steady stream of tourists on the river decided to put some bars "island" where people could do "ethyl supplies." Following this idea, everything was degenerating into a "water park" for guiris wanting to party with bars that have "happy" all (pizzas, smoothies, cakes ...) and infinitely repeated episodes of the sitcom Friends, let the place has become a circus for foreigners, a Ibiza kind of local integration zero price.
Viewing calico we spend only one night, although he had excursions around with very good looking, and we were caught another bus to Luang Prabang. The route passes through stunning landscapes, but we were intimidated by all the comments received on how bad was the road and dizziness that caught everyone ... but I think we are immune to the Galician curves. That if the bus and tuktuk (Photo included) was CONH, we caught one of those VIP buses ... gives me chills just thinking about how they can be local.
Although expectations were high, Luang Prabang we love it. Has a special atmosphere, with local government well aware of the attractiveness of the concept of alternative and sustainable tourism. We have seen, for example, signs asking you not to make pictures of the monks as if they were animals to be fair and show great respect. It is something we fully agree that we have been embarrassed several times when we saw a group of tourists pounce on any Buddhist temple.
As a counterpoint, the village has curfew ... if you heard, if at 0:00 hours the police found you through the streets, escort you home!. We still have not seen it but we have the official government notice pasted on the door of our lives ... so life Cinderella.
Here we have dropped a gear and we walked through the streets, run its night market (perhaps the most tranquil of all asia and of course closed before midnight) and will delight at our return, we signed up for a cooking course.
We had a phenomenal, first visited the local market where you can buy all the fresh ingredients you need for the dishes and of course also locks, panties, umbrellas or hair conditioner. After our chef, Phia Yang, has prepared several dishes and gave us tricks for replacing ingredients not easily found in Europe.
After the lecture, it was our turn, we prepare five different dishes with some success. Laap chicken, fried rice noodles with vegetables and pork, fried eggplant with pork, salad typical of Luang Prabang and a pot of pork.
To all those who thought in Espanha ate lots of garlic .... you can not even imagine how much they use them here, do not use a pair of teeth, here are a half dozen half a dozen. The success or failure of the dishes and what shall judge for yourself when you prepare them in Espanha. The tricky part will be finding tamarind (have to buy a price "English Court") but here the tree comes up under rocks.
Besides eating well, we visited some of the more than 30 temples that exist in Luang Prabang, there are for everyone and many of them are really spectacular, colorful and with these roofs so characteristic of this part of Asia.
A manhana We hit a good early start for a very special tradition of Buddhist monks. It turns out that Buddhism does not allow its monks grow their own food, so rely on the solidarity of the inhabitants of the area.
Among the five (rather half past five, that at five we were at the foot of canhon and there there was not blas), and six of the monks manhana through the town with a basket under his arm, and people kneeling along the streets will fill the baskets with rice. It is a moment worth seeing despite the yawning. It is also true that when a force has long tradition, the players see this as a routine but a nice gesture, and that's a little sad. Viewing
good vibes that brought us to the city, we decided to stay a little more for the area and make a 3-day trekking to visit the northern towns inhabited by the Hmong minority (the same as they were, if you remember, Sapa in northern Vietnam) and Khmu.
Satith, our guide, took us around pretty good pace montanha landscapes through villages to the village where we would spend the first night, everything was perfect, the road and enjoying a chat lively until ... basicamenteee ... we fell of the OCTOPUS!. Fascinating, I had not seen rain like this in my life, made you Danho drops shoulders even with all their clothes off.
However, this setback Pequenho became the rest of the first day of trekking in a hell of mud through which we glided for about four hours to reach eternal destiny. We arrived soaked from the toes to the head and legs to collapse the tension continually go looking for a strong point in the middle of this quagmire. To make matters worse, is that backpacks like watches endure water but to a point, so all our clothes clean was almost as wet pa .... lie to mourn. had few options but to resign and try to enjoy what was left. We got up early the next day and we did another shorter walk to the second village where we were going to sleep. This time it rained (at least on the way, if you did then) and everything went smoothly except for the humidity of the clothes. From our hut we had a spectacular view of the river that borders the village, where I took a well deserved after the effort banho.
In all these villages we visited, we felt a bit extranhos, everyone feels a great curiosity for you but you really can not connect much with them except for "hello" and "thank you" to learn in their language. From our point of view the tour I miss some integration with the local people, were in town but within Your cabanha, we would have liked more sleep with a family as we did in Vietnam. So you can help them cook and give a touch more of normalcy to your presence.
To finish our particular triathlon, did some kayaking down the Nam Khan River back to Luang Prabang. The day dawned rainy, which makes us think that perhaps the rainy season has advanced a bit this anho (usually begins in June). It was good to get some rest and let your legs do the work to the arms. We went through a rapid Pequenho who made the most entertaining way and finally arrived at our hostel tired, wanting a shower and a lot of clothes to wash. Perhaps the most beautiful of our tour were the meetings with the boy of the people, timid at first but gaining confidence by leaps and labor. They love to be in the display of the camera and can not stop laughing. We made thousands of photos and enjoyed genuine curiosity and self-confidence. Here are a few.
Now we have talked to finish dinner so we are going to show, as is "coconut" on Sesame Street the difference between a local style noodle soup and the same style "Falange" (foreigner). We were astonished at the amount sauces (most spicy of course) who had to throw his plate Satith to get that red color ... mine obviously was a little softer.
And that's all for now, manhana we embarked to cross the border back into Thailand upstream, but that's another story.
A kiss. Juan and Marta
0 comments:
Post a Comment