The Palace Museum—It didn’t take long to go through the palace, but I liked that. It is a modest palace. Spacious and with clean lines, void of elaborate tapestries and crazy mosaics of other palaces we’ve seen so far. It reminded me a lot of the Iolani Palace in Hawaii in terms of space and simplicity in design, only a little bit larger. The walls are mostly all white, with rich teak floors adding warmth and approachability to the open spaces. The king’s sitting room is painted with a beautiful mural depicting everyday Lao life. Some murals just sit on walls; they’re heavy and solid. Although it took up all four walls of the large room, this mural struck me as very lively and fresh. The different brush strokes skillfully placed to be illuminated by the daylight kept my eyes moving around the room to take in the whole scene (in fact, it was painted to look best in the light at the time of day depicted in the mural). One of my favorite things to do on a day when we’re not really doing much is to find a calm place to sit and read, write, or draw. The grounds outside the palace are a nice place to stroll or sit, which Matt and I took advantage of. There is this great round fish pond covered in water lilies and surrounded by coconut palms; we spent an hour or so just chillin’.

Noodle Lady and the Magic Peanut Sauce—“Foo or foo-ee?” Matt asked the waitress on our first night in Laos. He was trying to figure out the correct pronunciation for foe (or fue, as it was spelled on this particular menu), a type of noodle soup. “Faa,” she responded. Matt’s eyes lit up. Pho, Vietnamese noodle soup is one of our favorite. Laos is next to Vietnam, foe sounds like pho, so, logically, it must be good, right? Well, like most good dishes, it is hit or miss depending on who made it, but we found The Spot to go in Luang Prabang. Towards the end of the main tourist drag is row of sandwich stands. Across the street there is an alley where food stalls get put up during the night to feed locals and all the tourists willing to leave the “comfort” of the usual restaurants for the delights of a back alley meal, which may or may not be sanitary. (It depends on who sneezed where and if the water your bowl got rinsed with was clean or not.) This is where you will find the noodle ladies. Happily, the noodle stands are actually set up all day long, not just at night. Our favorite was the next to last stall. After finding an empty space on the bench, we would place our order—two beef noodle soup please. Noodle Lady would point to a basket full of fresh noodles, clarifying that we wanted the wide ones and not the skinny ones. We nodded in agreement and watched as she proceeded to make our bowls of soup one at a time. Some greens, bean sprouts, and noodles get placed in a wire ladle and are dunked in boiling broth for a quick simmer. Tomatoes and beef get sliced. The ladle’s contents are transferred to a big bowl, and the tomatoes and beef are placed on top. Peanuts, cilantro, and chives are sprinkled on top. Boiling broth is poured over everything, cooking the meat and fusing the contents together into one harmonious bowl of soup. The bowl is handed over, and now it’s my turn to complete the preparations. (Matt is a minimalist and generally eats his soup as it comes.) A condiment station is nearby: chili flakes, various types of chili sauce and paste, fish sauce, sugar. I go easy in this department, only adding what I presume to be a close match to siracha. The fresh additions are where I am more liberal. Two bowls are placed in front of us. One is filled with little chilies, lime wedges, and usually green beans or green onions. I squeeze a few limes, and throw in some beans. The other bowl is overflowing with a selection of lettuce, cabbage, pea shoots, basil, mint, and some other mystery greens. I add a little bit of everything (the pea shoots and basil are my favorites), then submerge it all under the steaming broth to make sure it’s good and cooked. By the time I am done preparing my bowl, Matt is usually about halfway done eating his. But that’s ok because mine is still steaming hot and as I prepare to dig in a small dish of sauce is placed next to me by Noodle Lady. Now, this isn’t just any old sauce. It is Magic Peanut Sauce, so named for it’s incredibly magical taste of peanuts, sweetness, and a little bit of spice all in one. The first time I had foe I just poured the sauce into my bowl. BIG mistake. Magic Peanut Sauce is best consumed unadulterated, unwatered-down. The best way to enjoy it is to fish out a slice of beef from the bowl of soup and dip it into the sauce, slowly savoring the juicy combination of tender beef with the sweetness of the peanut sauce. The Magic Peanut Sauce is one of the reasons why the noodle ladies of the alley in Luang Prabang is one of the best places to go for a bowl of foe. The other reasons are the delightfully fresh noodles, a crisp selection of greens, and the expertise of women who make noodle soup at least 14 hours a day, every day. Not all bowls of noodle soup are created equal (as we were to later find out throughout our time in Laos), and many places do not offer all the extras of the alley.

Other things deserving mention—Luang Prabang has one thing many places don’t—an abundance of baked goods. Real baked goods, not dry chocolate croissants and pitiful looking cinnamon rolls, but moist banana cakes, chocolate cakes, and a variety of other breads made with local produce (pineapple, mango, carrots, taro root). At least if I couldn’t eat my mom’s holiday desserts, I could still enjoy some banana bread. One morning while enjoying a nice taro root cake, we tried the wondrous Lao coffee with milk (sweetened condensed milk that is). The Lao coffee (I think the bean is different of something) is pretty good, but the s.c. milk made it into almost an instant frapachino. All you starving college students with finals out there, take note: sweetened condensed milk+coffee=poor man’s frapachino. One Lao offering that we did not try out was the roving pedicures (though I keep telling Matt he needs to exfoliate his heels…). Over the course of a few days I would see ladies getting pedicures at their shops, porches, even outside a food stall from a woman with a bucket of pedicure supplies. I saw it happening throughout town, but somehow it just didn’t seem so appealing to me. As far as other handicrafts go, the more appealing sort could be found in abundance at the Hmong night market. I was really amazed by what the vendors had to offer. It wasn’t the usual mass-produced junk I’ve seen so often throughout our trip. This was stuff I’d actually want to take home. There were beautifully appliquéd pillows, purses, bedspreads, and many items with little embroidered scenes of village life. Of course there were still some t-shirt stalls and other not-so unique items in the mix, but overall I was really impressed by the handicrafts, and it was nice to see a market with a different selection and quality of merchandise than what I’ve seen before.