Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang, Laos

We spent a couple days riding bicycles around the beautiful city of Luang Prabang. In the center of town is a hill that the Lao people call Mt. Phousi.

After many hours of prodding, Chris managed to convince Lauren to walk up the steps, where we were rewarded with a beautiful 360 degree view of the area.

The buddhist monastery at the top of the hill, like every afternoon, was doing their melodic chants broadcast on loudspeakers for the whole town to hear.

Women create elaborate flower sculptures to sell as offerings to Buddha for the annual water festival.

The Lao are known for their beautiful tapestries, so we toured Ock Pop Tok, an organization that employs weavers at a fair wage, learning about the process from the silk worm to the loom.

Dyed silk strands hang above the plants that give them their color.

We went to the Hmong market, where we met this man selling Hmong medicine, small bags full of different varieties of wood and bark and other plant matter, each combination for a specific ailment. The instructions tell you to boil the medicine in water, or steep it in lao lao, the local rice whiskey. Chris bought a bag and let it steep in lao lao for 24 hours, but found it far too bitter to consume an entire dose (2 shots).

We visited two libraries in town: the Luang Prabang Public Library (Actually run by NGOs and mostly funded the US government), and At My Library, a non-profit organization running a great program. We had the opportunity to chat with the ladies in charge of each and got some great ideas for The Antipodes Collective.

It was a great delight to find the evening food market, where dozens of vendors cram into an alley and sell delicious food. Highlights include lemongrass beef sausage, and homemade Lao potstickers.