No one puts baby in the corner

When the Fulbright coordinators came to Ben Tre to check on my three weeks after my arrival, they insisted that my hosts provide me with a rice cooker. This is not something I myself would have ever insisted upon, as in my many years of consuming rice I have never felt ill equipped without a rice cooker. However, I received one. And, until today, it sat in its original packaging in a corner of my living room. At some point, feeling guilty about the school's expense for my sake, I bought 5 kilos of rice in the hopes that this would spur me to use the cooker -- or at least provide resistance for any exercise I might feel motivated to do. Add the sack of rice to the untouched corner.

Need I mention that it was quite a while before I used my burner, and even then it was few and far between. Now I use the burner often enough that I have to buy gas canisters a couple times a month, though I don't do anything remotely fancy. So why has the rice cooker gone unused? Well, I'm not going to eat plain rice, and my palate is not tantalized by the thought of cooking any of the exhaust-smoked meat sold by the many butchers on the side of the road. Not to mention the fact that by the time I might be looking to buy, it would have been sitting out in the heat of the day for several hours. And not to mention the fact that I am not equipped to identify the cut of meat, ask about it, or express how much I want. So I have had no need to make rice.

In the last few months, some of my fellow ETAs have been blogging about using their rice cookers for more than just rice. French onion soup or rice pudding, for example. Their accomplishments have been impressive but not quite inspiring, only because my access to necessary ingredients seems rather limited. Even the grocery store, our source for western(-like) ingredients is stocked mostly with processed, prepackaged, and pre-cooked foods. Good for lazy cooks, not good for cooking experiments.

Tonight, I didn't feel like going out. I didn't feel like pasta and I'd already fried/defrosted spring rolls for lunch. But, I had some of my prized, rationed, refried black beans courtesy of my mom's visit. Dare I try the rice cooker? I dared. I took the cooker out of it's corner, took it out of it's Thai-labeled box, and sat it on the only place close enough for the cord to reach the outlet: the top of the refrigerator. After a while of cooking, the air in my room grew sweet with the smell of burning plastic. I went into the living room to inspect, but the smell disappeared as I went up to the rice cooker. Back in my room, it only grew stronger. Were strange currents afoot? The fridge and cooker are fine, so it shall remain a mystery. The only other semi-misstep was forgetting that I was only making rice for one. Rice for breakfast tomorrow? More importantly, tonight, my spirit cuddled in the taste of black beans and rice.

Now, I've started looking up some rice cooker recipes that I can make without exotic ingredients (exotic in this case referring to western). Perhaps some mac'n'cheese with pseudo cheese? Or this tropical rice with some modifications? If I try, you'll be the first to see the results.

Five months later

Friday morning I awoke to a surprising phone call: 'Please come to the office. You have a package.' Who could have sent me a package? No one had told me to expect one. What could it be. I got to the office and got an even bigger surprise. It was the package my dad and Sandra had sent for my birthday, five months ago! By now we had all assumed it would never make it. I celebrated with grits for breakfast.

September 15, 2011

In the late afternoon, Violet arrived. We had planned for her to visit me this weekend before my spontaneous visit to Tra Vinh last weekend. The last time she came was for my birthday weekend, about five months ago. Back then I had yet to discover all of the awesome nooks and crannies of Ben Tre, and I didn't have a way to take us around. This time, I have more local knowledge and she has a motorbike, so we got to be more adventurous. Violet came to my door and a snake joined me in greeting her. We went out to my favorite hu tieu place and then came back and enjoyed a bottle of wine that I had received in my Tet gift basket from the college.

The snake did not like having its picture taken

On Saturday we had the luxury of sleeping in. I hadn't woken up so late (past 10) in at least a month. We went out for bun thit nuong and then went to a nice outdoor cafe to relax for a while. After that we took a quick tour of the city center, and Violet saw the supermarket, the market, the Ben Tre River, and the lake. We came back to my room and Violet asked me to cut her hair. I was happy to comply, though slightly apprehensive about having so much responsibility thrust upon me, given that it was my first time cutting anyone's hair other than my own (not counting haircuts using clippers). Lucky for both of us, I'd say it turned out well.

Final result

It's alive!

We went out for bo la lot for dinner, and since it was still light outside I got my first decent picture of the delicious dish. After that we went on a mini road trip to My Tho to visit it's bustling night market. We made it to My Tho easily, but one wrong turn on the way to the night market got us turned around for quite a while. I was wondering at what point it would be better to give up when I saw a sign for it. Hooray! I ended up buying a rare Adelina-sized dress with serious bargining tactics. A few other items caught my fancy but were just not reasonably priced.

Typical night market 'English'

This morning Violet went back to Tra Vinh, and I stayed in catching up on all of the grading and lesson planning I put off while she was here. It's amazing how quickly the weekend goes by when you have things to do and someone to do them with.

Get cooking

The last thing I saw before going to sleep

I dreamed that I was celebrating a Vietnamese-style new year's. Part of the tradition was to jump into a lake and go as deep as you could before coming up. When I jumped in I discovered that there was a dry, oxygenated chamber at the bottom of the lake. However, in the chamber I realized that something, maybe the water, had caused me to break out in hives, but only on my face and shoulders. It didn't seem like a good sign for the new year.

A few days ago Trang and I talked about getting together today for her to teach me how to cook something. To my understanding, we never agreed on a time, so when she texted me at 8:50 this morning it also functioned as my wake up call. I met her a few minutes later and we went off to get breakfast. Once we were fueled up, we went to the market. Believe it or not, it was my first time going to the (food) market since arriving in Ben Tre. We'd driven past it once, and I've been to the supermarket, and I've bought food from small stands on the street, but I'd never really been to this market. As it was, we drove through it anyway. If I'd been on foot, you can be sure I would have taken way more photos.

Shark!

These garlic towers are placed on altars to ward off bad spirits

Ingredient shopping completed, Trang and I came back to my room to cook and assemble spring rolls. Through some trial and error on my part, and with a lot of help from Trang, we ended up with 30 delicious homemade fried spring rolls, and I have my first Vietnamese recipe!

I had a low-key afternoon, and graded the quizzes from Wednesday's USA class. At times the quizzes made me laugh (new states to the union include North and South California, Abathama, Alambama, and Alamabana), but they also concerned me. A few students weren't even able to name the region they were being quizzed on (the South), and several of my students conflated the civil rights movement with the civil war, or thought that the civil war was between slaves and slave owners. Hopefully the subsequent in-class discussion made things clearer for them. As a further indication of how badly the quizzes went, the average score on the quiz was 4.2 out of 10. Unlike Wednesday's class, this didn't make me feel disheartened. But it is obvious that I need to make some changes. I expected students to be able to comprehend and retain major themes in the reading, but that no longer seems like a reasonable expectation. Next week I'll tailor the discussion to the quiz and move the quiz to the end of class, and see how that goes.

I'm going on a spontaneous trip to Tra Vinh tomorrow, so I won't be back until Sunday.
I found this great video about Vietnamese coffee. Enjoy.

Land of the lotus eaters

"They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return."  - The Odyssey 

There is no denying that Vientiane was a sleepy town, but arriving in Luang Prabang felt like being sedated -- with a wonderful, stress-erasing, motivation-canceling sedative. It was lucky we had planned to have no plans for Laos and just go with the flow because, really, that was all we were capable of upon arrival. But let's rewind and start from the beginning, getting from Vientiane to Luang Prabang.

These watches were in nearly every market stall, and after a while
it was clear that this 'watch' is just as relevant in Luang Prabang
as any other.

1.16.12

We loaded up on snacks and, after some anxiety-inducing delays we were on our way on the VIP King of Bus to Luang Prabang. All in all, the eleven hour ride went by more quickly and easily than I expected, and it was more scenic than I'd dared hope. We spent most of the trip winding around mountains. The bumps and bends sometimes made it hard to sleep, but it was worth it to keep my eyes open. The verdure was muted under a dense coating of road dust, and made me feel like I was in an old photograph. We passed clumps of hill tribes that could have almost convinced me that I had been transported to Guatemala. The flora shifted from palm trees and rice fields to papaya groves to unknown deciduous trees. Sunset came in a striking, unbroken palate, and then the stars came. Believe it or not, I see the stars less often in Vietnam than I did in Houston or in the LA area. So, to see the stars from a mountaintop free of light pollution was a sparkling treat.

Riverside karsts accompanied us for a while

After finding a place to stay Kelly and I sought out a place to chill. We ended up at a restaurant across a river that is only accessible via bamboo bridge during the six months of dry season. Neither of us thought we were particularly hungry, but we were wooed by sindad, aka Lao hotpot, Lao BBQ, or Lao fondue. The waiters removed a ceramic tile from the center of our table, fit a pot of embers into the hole, and placed an unusual but ingenious contraption over it. Instead of a flat-bottomed pot, the center is domed up and slotted, creating an outer trench for broth and a dry center area for grilling. We received a kettle of broth; a plate of thinly sliced raw beef; a basket of noodles, cabbage, greens, eggs, and vegetables. Any dinner starting out with my receiving a platter of raw meat is off to a good start, and it was delicious. I topped it off with another new beer and for dessert we played a friendly game of scrabble.

Note the hotpot pot

Namkhong: I found out later that it is manufactured
by Heineken. And it tastes like it. 'Nuff said.

1.17.12
Having only recently arrived in Luang Prabang, we weren't fully under its spell yet, and managed to have a reasonably thorough first day despite getting started later than we intended. Our first stop was Phou Si, a hill and central landmark in the city. Near the base is Wat Pahouak, built in 1860 and now a UNESCO World Heritage site because of the murals inside depicting local history. At the top there is another wat and an overlook from which you can see the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers responsible for Luang Prabang's peninsular shape. On our way down the hill we passed an assortment of gold Buddha-related statues, a wat in a cave, and what is allegedly a stone imprint of Buddha's footprint (though, as the guidebook snidely commented, if it were real Buddha would have been the size of a brontosaurus).

The very top of the hill and wat

Cave wat

We spent the rest of the afternoon admiring wats strewn across the north side of town. While they may come to look more or less the same after a few dozen photographs, let me assure you that each one had its own unique and intriguing qualities, even if I can no longer remember most of their names.

Mesmerizing gilded entrance at one wat

Tree of life mosaic at another wat's rear

I took a refreshment break on my own and ended up having a very meaningful time. As I begin to think about my post-Vietnam travels, one of my concerns has been whether I can hold up on my own. During this break I met a fascinating expat and, more importantly, proved to myself that I am capable of striking up easy and interesting conversation with someone I don't know. I also browsed a Lao/English dictionary and extracted a few words whose specificity intrigued or amused me.

• bom kuay - to ripen bananas
• pao mon - to blow magically
• pao ya - to blow medically on a patient's ill part
• puad pai bun - to wish ardently to go to the festival
• pen none - to have worms
• pen tum - pimply
• bal - talk in sleep
• bon - to blow bubbles

This seems like a good time for a brief segue into the language, which makes Vietnamese seem easy by comparison. For starters, Lao has its own alphabet, and transliterations into our writing system are wildly inconsistent. In its alphabet (which is technically an abugida), from what I understand, the main characters are all consonants, and special vowel-indicating markings are placed in the vicinity (above, below, to the left or right) of these characters. There are around 50 different vowels and consonants, and there are six tones. Sounds fun, right? Nevertheless, with the expat's help we managed to expand our Lao abilities to include numbers, 'how much', 'beautiful', 'delicious', and 'very'. It's surprising how well these few words can serve you, and how well received they are. Kelly, a fellow linguist, and I were delighted to learn that in addition to using the word for 'very', you can just repeat the word you want to intensify (a language feature called reduplication).

Anyway, on with the day. More wats. Lazing at a riverside cafe. Snacking on Lao sausage at the same bamboo bridge place from the night before. Then we went looking for dinner. One of my favorite moments of the day came around this time. It was already quite dark when a group of teen monks passed us, but one wished us a 'good morning' (something we were repeatedly wished no matter the time of day). Kelly quickly replied, 'no, good evening.' Without batting an eye the monk called back, 'no, good morning tomorrow!'

Crossing the river. Can we all say paradise?

This dinner featured chicken laap (a sort of spicy and refreshing meat salad, emphasis on meat), buffalo orlahm (a stew with many herbs and spicy wood), an accompaniment of sticky rice, and two new beers.

Laap and sticky rice. No orlahm photo, apparently

By an unexpected series of events and introductions, we ended up finding our way to an implausible bowling alley full of foreigners because it is the only place open past the local midnight curfew.

1.18.12
By Wednesday, Luang Prabang insouciance had officially set in. We started at Ok Pop Tok, a nearby weaving village, where we took a quick tour that explained everything from the silkworms' diets to the dying process to the weaving. It was a beautiful, Mekong-adjacent place. We felt compelled to sit a while and try the silk worm poo tea. While we sipped and sunned, a group of women finished their half-day weaving class and their exuberance convinced us to set aside our intentions to visit a waterfall and sign up to weave the next day. At this point, spending four hours sitting would fit right in with the rest of our itinerary.

A rainbow of natural dyes

A loom. I think I'd cramp my brain trying to figure out how to set up all of the
threads myself.

Silk worm poo tea tastes just like normal tea.

On our way out I spotted a flier for Project Space, an art space featuring traditional and contemporary Lao art. As soon as I walked in it felt right. It smelled like art (and that's a good smell). The ground floor had quilt-like wall hangings made by a woman inspired by her shaman-husband's visions. The next floor had several small collections, including some shadow puppets and many related preparatory drawings, as well as the winning entries of a local photography contest. The very top floor was a rooftop terrace with an incredible view of the city. Naturally, we sat and drank in the peacefulness.

Shadow puppets

View from the top

Our next stop was Haw Kham, the royal palace, which is now preserved as a museum. Naturally, there was a splendiferous wat on the palace grounds. Though all of the members of the royal family had pretty awesome names, the late King Sisavangvong's was my favorite to say. No photos were allowed inside the palace. The public area was an opulent red and gold mosaiced display, making the high-ceilinged but white-walled living spaces seem spartan by contrast. The garage around the back housed the royal family's car collection, almost exclusively courtesy of annual gifts from the US government. A humanizing touch was the gallery of photos and brief biographies of the many royal chauffeurs.

Wat with the ever-popular and fascinating naga motif on the railing

Inside the wat

By now we were starving and more than ready to enjoy some street food noodle soup. I had to note that the buzzing flies and utensils of dubious cleanliness were more inviting than offputting. The soup itself was nothing to write home about, but a cautious dose of maroon sludge (chili sauce) gave it the kick it initially lacked.

1.19.12
Our weaving class forced us out of bed early, and we were on our way to Ok Pop Tok at 8am. We were greeted with bael fruit tea before getting down to business. We chose our silks, had a go at spooling the skeins, and then started weaving.

The skein is spread onto a turning contraption

Guiding the bright blue silk onto the spool

It was slow going at first. You hold the shuttle in your right hand, pressing down on the right pedal with your foot as you pass the shuttle through to the left. You take the shuttle in your left hand, switch your foot over the left pedal, give the weaving a good whack with the beater to get the rows tight, and then repeat the process in the opposite direction. Again and again. Then it was time to add the pattern. First it was just a matter of changing the color every four pass-throughs, but then it got complicated. There are threads at the top that are woven into the loom threads (yeah, my knowledge of weaving vocab is pretty lacking) just like the pattern you want woven into your fabric. You use the woven threads to separate the loom threads according to the pattern, drive in a plank to keep the necessary loom threads raised and lowered, and then pass the shuttle through. That probably didn't make much sense, so you can try reading Ok Pop Tok's more articulate but also more jargon-heavy descriptions on the enlargements of these two pictures:

If that still doesn't help, try watching this video. It didn't really make sense to me until I did it, but afterward I had a much better appreciation of the process when I watched the women who work there. Below, watch me go! This is near the end, when I'd made it through the pattern section and was just sliding the shuttle back and forth. It felt so much easier this time around. Meanwhile, the women who do this for a living put my pace to shame. 

 It was pretty amazing to watch a piece of fabric form before my very eyes. In the morning I had a heap of string. By noon it was a creation.

Me, my tutor, and my masterpiece

We capped off the experience with lunch. Kelly and I shared kaipen, seasoned 'Mekong weed' aka algae, with a dipping sauce of jaew bong, a chili sauce whose notable ingredient is water buffalo skin. My main dish was pork wrapped in lemongrass and then fried. The lemongrass dominated the flavor and texture at first, but after I got used to it it was perfectly enjoyable.
 

And then it was time to go. Time to go back to reality. Our trip back home during Tet season felt a lot like traveling on Thanksgiving weekend, complete with crowded airports and delayed flights, but eventually we made it home. It's never really possible to see everything there is to see in a given place, and I didn't even see everything I could have seen if I had woken up at seven and charged my way through a guidebook's checklist. Still, my experience was richer for it. I think it's a testament to a place that makes you feel like you have unfinished business when you leave, rather than making you feel like you 'got it done.' I saw a lot in Laos; I sat a lot in Laos, and I'd be happy to go back one day and do more of both.

“Most of my treasured memories of travel are recollections of sitting.” – Robert Thomas Allen

Laos begins to wow us

1.13.12
I'm not usually one for superstitions, but let's just say that the start of my trip happened to fit people's expectations for Friday the 13th. On the bus to HCMC I had a moment of panic when I thought that I had left my wallet back in my room. Fortunately, it was in my backpack, but my hands were shaking for a good while thereafter.

When I got to the bus station in HCMC I was immediately spotted by my newly dubbed 'xe-homie' (a xe om is a motorbike taxi). The first time he took me somewhere he wouldn't accept my bargain and I felt overcharged. The second time I didn't recognize him until it was too late, and our final bargain was once again too high. However, when we got to our destination he re-evaluated and charged me less than we had agreed upon. This time, he saw me and cried "my friend!" and gave me a very reasonable price to the airport.

Back to Friday the 13th drama. I am one million times thankful that I decided to get to the airport early and check in right away. After finally making it to the front of the unmoving line I was told that since I did not bring the credit card I used to purchase my ticket, I would have to cancel my original one and buy a new ticket. I was told that I could get a full refund on the original ticket, but that the new ticket would likely be more expensive. I had to leave the check-in line and go to the ticketing line. I waited there, found out that the price was actually the same, and almost went through an entire transaction and then was told that I could not use this card to make the purchase because it says "Capital One Customer" instead of my name on it. Sooo I had to leave that line, find the ATM two floors down, get enough cash to pay for the ticket, then go back upstairs and get back in line and try again. Third time's the charm, I guess. Then I had to go back to the check-in line. Finally, finally, all was well and Kelly and I were on our way to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

I naively expected Laos to feel more or less the same as Vietnam. I mostly just figured that since Vietnam is so different from the US, a neighboring country should be equally different and therefore feel generally similar. Instead, my first night in Laos made me realize just how hard it will probably be to readjust to life outside of Vietnam. I naturally chose chopsticks over the fork, and couldn't leave my plate sitting on the table in front of me; I had to hold it up near my mouth. I missed eating out of a small bowl and I was comforted by the roll of toilet paper serving as napkins. I was perplexed as to what to do with my wadded up napkins since there was no trashcan under the table and the place was too nice for me to just drop it on the floor, as I would in Vietnam. Over dinner I enjoyed the acclaimed Lao Beer. Admittedly, the lager was not terribly inspiring, but the dark lager was a happy reminder that beer can actually taste like something.

1.14.12
The next day illuminated even more differences between Laos and Vietnam. Right away, the prevalence of cars and minimal presence of motorbikes was striking. Kelly and I found ourselves struggling to cross the street when it doesn't feel like live-action Frogger. Regularly spaced traffic lights, obedience of conventional traffic regulations, and ostensibly silent horns were further baffling.

We embarked on a guidebook-guided tour of the city. We passed by the Presidential Palace on the way to our first stop, Wat Si Saket (wats are Buddhist temple complexes). Wat Si Saket is known for being the oldest standing temple in Vientiane and for having thousands of Buddhas. As our first wat, it was particularly striking.

Central temple, with renowned murals inside

Our introduction to the vibrant and intricate wat decor

Large Buddhas and two small Buddhas in each alcove.

We stopped by a large market, but I missed being somewhere where I know the language (and where the exchange rate is more in my favor). Almost everyone spoke English, but things just feel better when you can speak to people in their own language. We passed by That Dam, the Black Stupa, which happened to be next to the US Embassy, and had lunch nearby.

I'm the tiny speck in the lower center

Next, we went to Wat In Paeng, perhaps the most breathtaking of the day's wats. It was here that I began to feel a profound appreciation for being in Laos. Jumping onto Kelly's Tet travel bandwagon brought me into the midst of a beautiful new world I could never have imagined. A young monk came right over to talk to me, perhaps intrigued by my vaguely Asian features. He took a shine to me, and was happy to both practice his English and tell us all about himself and monk life. He told us that he was from Luang Prabang, but that there is no monk college there, so he had to move to Vientiane. I learned that I really knew nothing about Buddhist monkhood. They wake up early to receive alms, pray, and clean. In the evening they meditate for about 15 minutes. In between they study and have a lot of free time that, as far as I can tell, they use like any normal person would. They say that you can be a monk in the morning and not a monk in the evening; you can join and leave monkhood as you wish, as many times as you want. He also helped us practice Lao numbers, because Kelly and I were both tired of not being able to say anything other than hello (sabaidee) and thank you (kop jai) in Lao.

View of the main temple and entrance to the wat

Top of the archway over the wat gate, seen above

Gilded, mosaiced, muraled temple entrance

From there we went to Wat Ong Teu Mahawihan, the monk's college, and Wat Haisok.

Wat Haisok, as seen from the top of a tower in the complex

And then, the surreal and serene went to another level. We had read about Wat Sok Pa Luang, which is known for its herbal sauna and has guided meditation on Saturday afternoon. As luck would have it, it was Saturday. We started with seated meditation, during which we were supposed to focus on the flow of our breath. I did realize how much my ears revealed the longer my eyes were closed. Next, we moved on to walking meditation, and I was much better at that. Everyone was walking slowly, with purpose and awareness, I suppose, but I felt like that would alter what I was supposed to be observing. The constant change of walking helped me keep my focus, and giving conscious attention to visual distractions felt valid within the objective of fully experiencing the moment. I watched a spider wrap its prey; I walked on different surfaces to note the differences; I walked in circles on the sand to see how my footsteps came to overlay on each other. Then we went back to sitting. My mindfulness was more established by then, and it was easier this time around. I observed the erratic swarm of my thoughts, how one always rushed in to fill the void I tried to create. After that we took on the sauna. You might ask why one would choose to enter a steam bath when it could be said that the last five months of my life have been an unending steam bath, and I asked myself the same question. However, once I entered the wooden hut and breathed in the cloud of tea, I had to admit that it felt good. After a few ins and outs in the sauna, we decided it was time for our massage. Cue the best massage of my life (1 of 2 ever, but still).

The night wasn't over yet. We went to a night market for some authentic Lao food, and chose spring rolls, fried spring rolls, and big balls of rice that get broken up and mixed with lemon juice and herbs. We swung by Pha That Luang, the national symbol of Laos. After that we discovered that by that time of night it wasn't so easy to get tuk-tuks, the default mode of public/tourist transportation. Suddenly our meager Vietnamese abilities felt like a treasure trove compared to our nonexistent knowledge of Lao. We decided to give it a shot and tried to ask a woman for help, in English. To our surprise and delight, she informed us that she was Vietnamese. Communication! Success! She couldn't really tell us anything other than that we were up a creek, but some time after starting the walk back to the hotel we managed to hail a passing tuk-tuk and make it home.

not so foreign

Rice plate. We asked for 'just a little spicy' and got about six peppers each.

Rice balls. Each one turns into a rice plate as seen above.

Pha That Luan

1.15.12
Today was our last day in Vientiane, so we tried to get around to the last few things on our list. We rented bikes (yes, I biked!) to expedite our commute to Patuxay, the victory arch. Despite the self-deprecating sign saying that it is "a huge structure resembling the Arc de Triomph" that, "from a closer distance, it appears less impressive, like a monster of concrete," it was a sight worth seeing. Seven stories up, the top provided a great view of the city.

Patuxay

View of the plaza below

After that we met up with Leslie and John, two ETAs teaching in Laos, for lunch. It was great to meet new people, trade stories, find differences and similarities, and get an insight into Lao culture. They also introduced us to a new dish, tam mak hung, a papaya salad. They also gave us advice about what to make our next and final stop. Off to buddha park we went.

Papaya salad

Fulbrighters

We surrendered our bikes and took a tuk-tuk the 20-odd kilometers out of town. The long, bumpy, hair-tangling, dust-coating ride took us past the Lao-Thai friendship bridge and the Lao Beer Brewery. We also zipped past innumerable wats that made us wish we had more time to explore. Buddha park itself was a unique sight to behold. It was built in the 1950s and is full of Hindu and Buddhist statues made to look ancient. Though it houses a small temple, it is mostly a photo-op playground for locals and tourists. 

On the tuk-tuk

View of Thailand across the Mekong

Not pictured: brewery fragrance

Buddha park

Chilling on the most iconic of the statues

Clearly, I needed a picture on the cricket statue

In the evening we went to the night market, and even though we didn't do much shopping we made a grand discovery. The best thing since sliced bread: grilled sticky rice on a stick. It was like a hot, savory, fried rice popsicle. We had to go back for another. We also got to try Lao Beer Gold, the third of the three Lao Beers.

Pure genius