Laos continued

Our 3rd day in Luang Prabang we were scheduled to go to the Luang Prabang orphanage. We picked up some school supplies for the kids, then headed to the orphanage. We were able to present the supplies to the director and hear about the orphanage, its funding and the kids. Unfortunately for us, it was a holiday and most of the kids were visiting there relatives in villages. Only 35 children at the orphanage school have no family whatsoever. We were able to meet them and see there workshops where they were busy painting and making small sculptures from rocks to sell at the night market. After visiting we returned to Luang Prabang and spent the rest of the day walking around and relaxing.

The next day we got up early for breakfast then headed down the road to the Tum Tum Cheung cooking school. We were in a class with 14 other people and it was fun to hear all of the other's travel adventures. The class took us to the morning market where we shopped for the fresh ingredients to go into our meal. We prepared, as a class; spring rolls, fried rice salad with tofu, sour fish soup, stuffed bamboo sprouts/stuffed lemongrass, sticky rice and spicy beef salad. In Lao cooking, the preparation takes most of the time (approx 4-5 hours for a party of 16!) so we only chopped the basics - lemongrass, ginger, galangal (type of ginger), garlic, and shallots. The chef showed us all of the different types of herbs, spices and vegetables that are typically in Lao cooking, and educated us on what to supplement once we were at home. The class was a lot of fun and the food was delicious!

After the class we relaxed in our hotel until 5:45pm when we met our guide to head off to the Baici ceremony. This is a traditional Lao ceremony where the community blesses people coming or going on a long journey. The traditional Lao belief is that people have 22 spirits that leave them when they leave home, so in the ceremony they tie 22 strings on your wrists to call the spirits home. Each villager tied 1 string on each of our wrists. They then sang to us, and presented us with several sweets as well as having us take 2 shots of Lao Lao, the local whiskey, by crossing arms with each other and drinking. No one said the Lao don't know how to throw a party! After, some of the local children entertained us with traditional dances. The girls danced in groups of 5 or 6 doing several dances and 2 boys did traditional Rama dances with masks. It was excellent (I felt like Clara in the Nutcracker!).

Following the ceremony we returned to our favorite Lao bbq restaurant where they immediately recognized us and, once again, cooked most of our food for us :o) Shane proceeded to sweat profusely and we thoroughly enjoyed every bite!

We are now packing our bags and saying goodbye to Laos. We head for Hanoi this afternoon and will meet up with Eddie Mears to explore Vietnam and Cambodia.