Same same but different

My sister and I travel well together. Hell, many people even think we're twins.  She’s  more the daredevil between the two of us. We balance each other out and get the other to do things we wouldn’t normally do. Things of course that the other ends up totally loving and is ultimately glad we did. 

 The main thing Mari wanted to do in Laos was ride elephants. While that seems all great and fun I don’t know if I mentioned about health care?? The older sister in me was having terrible visions of some horrifically violent, elephants-gone-wild-in-the-circus type of incident. Inevitably, I would be the one to survive, then would come the shame of returning to tell my parents… Anyways I somehow managed to push that idea out of my head long enough to buy a ticket and jump on a rickety (come on, they are never not rickety) truck out to ride some elephants. 

Our short ride outside of the town brought us to rural villages. Here the homes where fascinating. They were not just straw huts. The walls were complicated woven rugs. Aesthetically they were more pleasing and complicated than one would expect from this type of a structure. Some of the homes seemed  to be built on good and sturdy foundations. The weather is such in Laos year round that there is not a great need for complete insulation. I would have thoroughly enjoyed being invited to sit with the groups of women we saw preparing food for the nights meal I can only imagine sitting around gossiping about the neighbors or tourists atop elephants.  

Elephants are amazing animals. Any American school kid has seen an elephant, but to stand right in front of one and stroke its trunk is another thing. These animals are so large yet so calm. Being in this animals presence is like being next to a dinosaur. Or, maybe like holding a newborn baby, the world is full of potential. These majestic animals are so lovely that the thought of someone harming them seems so pure evil or at least insanely desperate. 

 Sauntering down the road, bareback elephant riding is a pretty cool place to be. I kinda felt like the Sultan from Aladdin making my grand entrance minus all the jewels and what have you. As predicted the creature would want a dip in the river.  Swimming with elephants, of course, why not? Please don’t question the safety or sanitation. 

Wow, just starting to realize why my sister was not 100% giddy when I told her my fun activity.  Laotion cooking class. Come on, totally fun and totally as cool as riding elephants, for real. She was a good sport though and I think she did end up having a pretty good time “cooking” as well. Our guide took us first out to a market. The market is almost a mandatory stop in any country. Having a guide was surprisingly useful. Without him there where many market wonders we would never have learned about. Here’s a few to give you an idea. Flies, sometimes you want them and sometimes you don’t. While fish sauce can ferment up to a year, a good one won’t have flies hovering around. Little critters which are sundried, on the other hand, more flies, more flavor. There were also bags of white powdery stuff that looked like some type of processed grain. This we discovered was lime, as in ground limestone. People use is as we would use chewing tobacco and with a similar high. More commonly it is used among women because women smoking in public are highly frowned upon if not completely unheard of. It will eventually make your teeth black and  fall out.  Lastly there where round frisbee like discs of black stuff, if I had to guess I would say it was some type of molasses, maybe on the idea of piloncillo. I couldn’t have been more off, it was something compiled from ants nests and was used as glue. Good thing I didn’t grab it to give it a taste.  

sticky rice baskets.

dried critters.

From the market we were whisked to an open air cooking resort. Our guide was not short on jokes or flirtations and under his lead we whipped up some pretty impressive stuff. Part of the time I felt like we were in a Mexican cooking class. We used a molcajete,  a common instrument in Latino kitchens, for spice grinding and sauce making. As well as finding ourselves using banana leaves to wrap food for steaming, another technique widely used in Southern Mexico.  These moments are what I like to call, no, no, no, not seeing the Mexican in everyone! I call them “world bonding moments.” No matter how far you go you find more things that make us the same than things that make us different. 

Laotian Molcajete