The food was so lush, we had delicious buffalo steak and fries, it was loads better than any food I've had in France and a quarter of the price!!
As well as stuffing our faces we also managed to fit in a visit to the living land farm. We had seen it on TripAdvisor as the top rated activity and thought we'd give it a whirl. The living land farm was set up as co operative by several families in a village to grow rice to feed themselves. They also grow fruit and vegetables to sell to local restaurants. They open their doors to tourists and teach you about how rice is grown and all the stages of production. We were joined by 2 Aussies who were farmers, we definitely felt inexperienced!!
We had an amazing day and got to pick, plant and plough. We also met Susan the buffalo and fed her salt, which she loved to lick from your hand! After being shown all the steps of rice production we were also shown the garden, in it they also grow tobacco so we picked, dried and smoked some!!!
We ended the day with a feast of rice for lunch, with sugar cane juice and rice wine! We also stopped at a local's house so Adam and the Aussie guy could buy some traditional Laos garb.
Whilst in Luang Prabang we participated a couple of times with a charity called Big Brother mouse. This charity was set up to help local children learn to read and write and as they get older to learn to read, write and speak English. We attended their centre to talk to those students learning English to help them with their pronunciation. They could question us about our lives and we could do the same. It was absolutely fascinating to hear about their lives and their views on the world! It was also great to help them understand English words and pronunciation.
Our night time adventures included drinking yummy wine at one of the very French influenced wine cellars and visiting the night market. I loved this night market as there was loads of really. Interesting bits to buy such as bomb jewellery as well as the usual traveller bits.
We were very sad to leave Luang Prabang but for the sake of the weight loss plan felt it was for the best. Our next stop was to the infamous Vang Vieng but we got there via a very long, bumpy diversion to Phosovan and the Plain of Jars.The roads there and back were horrendous, a mixture of bad roads and the fact that we were driving over massive mountains. Sunrise up in the mountains whilst munching on breakfast was pretty special though!
Phonsovan was heavily bombed during the Vietnam war and has unexploded bombs everywhere. There are hundreds of plain of jars sights but only 3 have been cleared of these horrendous devices.Whilst walking to the sights and around we had to stay within markers as outside of these the land had not been properly cleared.As well as the jars the plains were marked by many craters, scars of the bombs dropped by the US.
Nobody is entirely sure why the jars are there but experts think they are ancient funeral urns. The jarsvreminered us of stone henge and probably come from a similar period. They were pretty impressive and it was lovely to be off the beaten track a bit.
We eventually made it to Vang Vieng about 11pm and just crashed. Our days there were pretty uneventful as we didn't fancy tubing or drinking ourselves silly. The food was also pretty grim compared to Luang Prabang. Our next stop was the capital city Vientiane
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