Chilling at the beach in Thailand

 After spending a few weeks in Laos we are now in lovely Thailand for 2 weeks of beach time before starting the final leg of our journey.  We are at Koh Phangan, an island in the south of Thailand, near Koh Samui.  When we arrived it poured rain for 2 days...but thankfully the rain has stopped, the sun is shining and the rainy season has ended!  We are staying at a great hotel (only $36/night) - this is the view from our balcony.  We have been really lazy - just sunning, swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, eating, reading and sleeping  - a great beach holiday!





Koh Phangan also has a wonderful place to do yoga - Agama Yoga School. I have joined the beginner class for 3 days and will do 2 more days next week.  I have been busy collecting cosmic energy through my upturned hands, listening to music through my arms, breath holding to increase my personal energy and standing on my head!  Here I am doing sun salutations during sunset on our balcony.  

Chuck is obsessed with taking sunset pictures from our room.  We drink beer on the balcony and wait for the 'perfect' shot - this one is great!

 

Cole's Question of the Day #20

Today's question is...   what is this wooden mechanisam? (7pts 1st, 5pts 2nd, 3pts 3rd and 1pt 4th 5th etc)

The correct answer is a sugar cane juicer. I am turning the helicopter handle. This would be very hard with twelve sticks of sugarcane shoved in the wet bottom part!

Luang Prabang

We spent a week in Luang Prabang, a lovely city in the north of Laos.  There are many temples in the city and hundreds of monks can be seen walking through the streets.  Many of the buddhist monks are novices, young boys who spend several months to a year living with the monks and learning about Buddhism.  Unique to Laos the monks carry umbrellas to shade them from the hot sun.  I snapped this photo as 3 novices (ages about 13 and 10) walked down the street.  They are not allowed to get within 3 meters of a woman so it is hard to get a photo!  They live a simple life but we did see two of them playing a game on their i-phone. 



The streets of the town are lined with boutique hotels, restaurants, cafes and handicraft shops.  The night market is gigantic, we did lots of shopping - buying wood carvings, silver earrings and necklaces, fabric bags, aprons, t-shirts and toys that shoot up into the sky.  We also spent a few afternoons relaxing in the cafes enjoying cafe lattes, frappes and pastries. 

Kenna is trying on a traditional hill tribe necklace (no we did not buy it!).

This is the view of the city from the top of Phusi Hill where a small temple is located.  In Luang Prabang the Mekong and Namkhan rivers joined together, creating lots of areas for riverfront cafes and restaurants.  I even got to enjoy a yoga class on the riverfront during sunset.

There are many temples in the city.  This one is located on the grounds of the royal palace and the inside is full of intricate carvings that are completely covered with gold leaf. 

Every morning at dawn the monks wander quietly through the town to collect alms (food) and bless the people.  Locals and tourist alike line up to provide alms to the monks.  In this photo there are even monks from Thailand (on the left) providing alms to the Luang Prabang monks. 

Weaving Class

While we were in Luang Prabang Kenna and I took a dyeing class at the handicraft store - Ock Pok Tok.  It was a really fun morning as we picked leaves, dug roots, chopped bark and boiled it all together to make the dyes.  

Here I am smashing Tamarind root with a mortar and pestle to make the base for a yellow dye.  After the dye was created we soaked the silk skeins in the liquid for 10 to 20 minutes.




These are the silk skeins colored with all natural dyes.  I was amazed at the richness of the colors. 

In the afternooon we learnt how to weave.  Before we could begin our weaving we had to spin the silk onto the bobbins that would be used for the weaving. Here I am...slowly...spinning the silk. 



Ock Pok Tok employs 20 master weavers to create wall hangings, table cloths and scarves.  The quality of the work is impressive. Master weavers take about 20 years to learn their craft - starting with lessons from their mothers when they are about 8 years old.

We each made a 30 x 40 cm silk placemat.  It took about 2 hours to make one.
Here is Cole getting help from an expert weaver and the translator. 

 

 Kenna quickly got the rhythm of the weaving - slide the shuttle, press the foot pedal, bang the comb, repeat.  Over and over and over!  When we began the pattern the weavers helped us as each row had to lift the threads in a particular pattern. 

 

Vang Vieng

 After Luang Prabang we took a 5 hour bus ride through the mountains to Vang Vieng.  Unfortunately our bus broke down, and the ride took almost 12 hours.  Vang Vieng is known for it's natural beauty - karst mountains towering over the Nam Song River. 

For the past 5 years Vang Vieng has been known as a backpacker's party town, so we originally planned to give it a miss, but 6 weeks ago the government came in and closed down all the bars along the river.  The town is now quiet and the landscape, kayaking, rock climbing and tubing down the river are the attractions again.  We had a great 3 days.

This is the view from our hotel room window.  While we were there we had some clouds and rain - the mountains looked amazing shrouded in the mist. 





We spent a day walking around the town and the next day Cole, Kenna, and Chuck spent a few hours climbing the local cliffs.

 

It was a bit rainy but they still had lots of fun.

The next day the sun shone so we spent 2 hours floating down the river on the inner tubes.  The landscape was amazing and the river run was easy and fun. 

After the tubing we visited the "Blue Lagoon" - about 15 minute tuk-tuk ride outside of town.  The water was cold, clear and green.  We all took a turn on the rope swing.  Here is a picture of Chuck having a turn.



Along the river we saw lots of local kids making "mud balls" and racing them down the river bank.  These two boys proudly showed Chuck their handiwork.

Cole's Question of the day #19

Today's question is... What is it and what is it used for (6pts for 1st, 4pts for 2nd, 2pts for 3rd and 1pt for 4th 5th etc.)

The correct answer is a  heddle/comb. It is used in a loom.



 

Cooking in Luang Prabang

While we were in Luang Prabang Cole, Kenna and I decided to take a cooking course with the Tamarind Cooking School.  It was a great experience.  We went to the market first to learn about all the ingredients we would be using.  Laos uses lots of fresh herbs and vegetables, many which are not available in Canada - but there are some familiar ones - green onions, cilantro, basil, mint, lemon grass, coriander.  The red vegetable is banana flower - used in salads.  It is quite delicious and crunchy.





Chili is a main ingredient in Laos food - in the market there are 5 different kinds of chili powder from not too hot to "Laos" hot.  The chilli powder is in the middle of the photo.  The back of the photo is homemade fish sauce - bought one small plastic bag at a time.  It looks like brown sludge with chunks of fish floating in it - this fish sauce is 2 years old! The front of the photo is garlic - used in many dishes here.



The meat section of the market can be a bit overwhelming to us Westerners who are used to getting our meat in small plastic wrapped packages!  At the market you can get pigs' feet, pig head, liver, kidneys, intestines, ribs, backs, bags of blood (for blood pudding and blood sausage), as well as the regular cuts of meat we find at home.  Our kids have been through a number of markets now and Kenna is no longer eating pork or beef!


After the trip to the market we headed out to the cooking school.  It was a lot of fun.  We used all the ingredients on the table to make 5 dishes.   After the first dish we made with 2 chilis (mild according to our teacher) we decided to 1/4 all the chili ingredients - Laos food can be really hot!

In Laos they use charcoal braziers to cook the food - it works for barbequeing/roasting as well as steaming rice.  All rice in Laos is "sticky rice" that is steamed over a pot of boiling water.



Lots of fresh herbs in the food - so for each recipe we had to pound the leaves and roots with a large mortar and pestle - this makes for incredibly fresh food.   Here is Cole working away.



Here I am with one of our dishes...buffalo meat salad.

For dessert we made coconut sticky rice. Kenna is making coconut milk from dried coconut soaked in water.   She is squeezing out the milk here.

 

Here is our feast - on the left is chicken stuffed in lemon grass, at the bottom is fish steamed in banana leaf with herbs, the small bowl at the top is peanut sauce, the small bowl at the bottom is tomato dipping sauce (really, really hot), the dish in the middle is buffalo meat salad and the sticky rice is in the baskets.  The dessert was still soaking - but it was delicious!