Nearly Neutral Travel

Last week, we spent the morning at a farm just outside Luang Prabang to take part in the intriguingly-named ‘Rice Experience’, where we would learn more about what it takes to produce one of the world’s most important staple foods^†. We’d read beforehand that children loved it, and true to form, I was extremely excited about splashing around in some mud and meeting the water buffalo.

Step 1: Select the grains

Our guide Neuk showed us how to select the most suitable grain for planting by putting a freshly-laid egg into a bowl of water and showing us that it sank. Next, he added lots of salt (to increase the density of the water) until the egg began to float, then removed the egg and added handfuls of rice. The rice grains that sank in the salty water were suitable for planting, as their weight suggested that they were healthy grains and not damaged or empty husks.

Typically, 35 kg of grain is required to plant a hectare of rice, so it is well worth selecting the grains that have the best possible chance of producing a good crop. Ultimately, this will yield around 1,500 kg of rice (roughly a 40-fold increase!).

Step 2: Germinate the seed

Now it was time for us to get involved. Neuk casually stepped barefoot down from the path into the rice paddy and invited us to follow him. He made it look very easy to walk around but it really wasn’t – somewhere between wading in soup and ice skating! Thankfully at this point he hadn’t mentioned the snakes, spiders and rats who also live in the rice paddies (and who end up on locals’ BBQs for dinner if they are harming the crop). For some reason it hadn’t crossed my mind that we might be sharing the area with any friends, so I happily got stuck in.

Neuk gathered some mud together to make a mini-mountain that protruded above the water level, and we sprinkled the grain on here.

He splashed the grain with water and explained that it would take between three and four days to germinate. We didn’t have this long to wait, so in a perfect Blue Peter moment, he produced some seedlings he had prepared earlier that we could use for the next steps in the process.

Step 3: Plough the rice paddy

I was quite surprised to find that a flooded rice paddy needed ploughing, but apparently it does and this happens in several stages: first, the earth is loosened and turned over so that any weeds are buried, and then a rake-like plough (which probably has a special name…) is used to even out the ground ready for planting. For this job, we met Susan, a gentle giant of a water buffalo who lived on the farm with her partner Bentley and her three-month old baby. We thought Susan was an excellent name for a water buffalo, although the little we know about farming from friends tells me that it is not the done thing to name your cattle, so she had almost certainly been named for our benefit!

We were taught the Lao commands to ask Susan to start and stop, and I had a go at driving the plough. Even though Susan was doing all the hard work, it still took my full attention to keep up with her while sloshing through the knee-deep mud. I did my best with the commands, but Susan made it very clear that she didn’t understand my accent.

Step 4: Plant out

Now that the paddy was ready for planting, we were shown how to stand in a row facing the side of the paddy, divide our seedlings and pop them into the soil, then take a step backwards and repeat. It was not at all easy to walk backwards through the thick mud without falling! By this point, I had wiped my muddy hands all over my shorts so was in a complete mess, but I still wasn’t quite ready to embrace the prospect of getting entirely submerged in the mud.

Neuk showed us how to control the amount of water flowing into each rice terrace by using a thick clod of mud. This is stuffed into the irrigation channel to block it or lifted out to let the water flow into the lower terraces. It was simple but remarkably effective! This method is needed because they sometimes allow fields to dry out completely in order to force the rice plants to grow stronger and deeper roots.

Step 5: Harvest

In Northern Laos, rice farmers are able to produce two harvests per year. From planting to harvest takes around two months during the dry season and more like five-six months during the wet season. Either way, once the plants turn yellow, this is a sign that they are ready to be harvested.

We were shown how to grab a plant, face the scythe away from our bodies, and cut rapidly through the stems. We then used one of the stems like a ribbon to tie the other stems together and perched this little bouquet on top of the stalks still protruding from the rice paddy. It is then left here in the sun for a week to dry out.

Step 6: Thresh and winnow

Now we had our rice crop, it was time to leave the fields (and attempt to clean our feet, although to be honest, that’s been an ongoing project over the last few days…) We learnt how to separate the grains from the rest of the plant by bashing them repeatedly on a wooden block. I didn’t try this bit, but it was clear from our group’s attempts that it wasn’t as easy as it looked!

Once the threshing stage was completed, this left a pile of grain, mixed in with chaff, leaves, and other bits and bobs that needed separating using a fan. Did you know this was called winnowing? I’ve just learnt this word while writing this post and I’m very pleased with it!

Step 7: Husk

The next stage was to remove the rice grain from its husk. Apparently there are strict gender roles at play here – men or boys do the stamping part and women do the mixing part, never the other way around. Typically, boys will get up around 4 or 5am and do an hour of husking before school. Quite the morning work out!

This stage leaves a big bowl of rice grains mixed in with the husks, and to separate the two involves putting them into a round tray and sieving them with an action similar to cooking in a wok. I’m not sure I quite had the knack, but I was much better at it than some of our group! Any waste from this stage is used as chicken or pig feed or can be used to produce rice wine.

Step 9: Soak and steam

In Laos, sticky rice is an important component of every meal. For breakfast, the rice is soaked overnight and then steamed in the morning for 20-30 minutes, turned over and steamed for a further 10 minutes. It’s seriously sticky stuff, so turning it over is much more like flipping a pancake than stirring a pot. After steaming, it is spread out on a large tray, which helps it to cool down and dry out a bit.

Step 10: Serve and eat!

Finally, it’s time to eat. Sticky rice is always served in a kong khao dok, a bamboo rice basket. I had assumed until this point that these baskets were also used to steam the rice, but I now realise that Laotians eat far too much sticky rice to mess around with steaming dainty little portions individually! Anyway, the baskets look really pretty but also keep the rice warm throughout the meal, which is important because in Lao cuisine, every bite should be eaten alongside a handful or spoonful of rice.

I love rice (like, really love it!) but I’m ashamed to say that other than admiring pretty terraces from afar, I didn’t really have any idea how it grew, what the plants looked like or quite how we ended up with rice from them. Even though some of the steps we learnt are the ‘ancient’ way of doing things and some farmers now have machines to replace steps in the process, it was still a really fascinating crash course and a gloriously muddy morning!

Our second destination in Laos was Luang Prabang, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Town, located in the north of the country at the confluence of the Nam Khan River and the Mekong River.

The train

The super-modern, high-speed Boten–Vientiane railway links the Lao cities of Vientiane and Luang Prabang before heading for the Chinese border, and we were keen to make use of it on our journey through Laos. The owner of our guesthouse in Nong Khai had recommended that we “start working on the train tickets” as soon as we arrived in Vientiane, since acquiring said tickets was “a process”. Having bought a few tickets on this trip so far, I was pretty confident, until I hopped onto the Man In Seat 61‘s site and finally understood what Julian was talking about. It turns out that you can’t buy tickets online, the station is 13 km outside of the city, and the city centre booking office doesn’t accept cash or international credit cards! Reluctantly, we bought our tickets through an agent, with the inevitable commission added on top.

The train line is very impressive and almost brand new, given that passenger services only commenced in December 2021. The railway is a joint project between the Laotian and Chinese governments, and it represents the largest and most expensive infrastructure project in Laos ever. Our trip took only 1 hour 40 minutes to cover 238 km – a journey that otherwise would have taken at least 6 hours by road.

We completed the final hop from Luang Prabang train station to the city centre by a public minibus. This would have been a quick journey, had our fellow passengers not stopped the minibus for a lengthy interrogation of the poor driver regarding where they should disembark. It seems not everyone enjoys a good game of public transit roulette as much we do!

The town

The city centre of Luang Prabang is beautiful, and it exceeded both of our expectations. Almost every building was a tastefully-restored colonial building, with a traditional wooden sign above the front door of the business. For this reason it gave us Hội An vibes, but despite how many hotels and restaurants there were around the town centre, it rarely felt busy.

We were also fascinated by the pair of bamboo bridges that cross the Nam Khan River. We’d heard that each bridge is carefully constructed each year over a one-week period at the start of the dry season, and dismantled again before the wet season arrives and the river levels rise. Confusingly though, both bridges were in the process of being taken apart as we arrived despite it being the middle of the dry season. Clearly, the owners of the bridges knew something that we didn’t…

The waterfall

Just 30 km from Luang Prabang lies Kuang Si falls – a 60 m high cascade of water turned bright blue by the river’s limestone deposits. Following our recent success at the Angkor Wat, we opted for an early Tuk Tuk to the falls in an attempt to beat some of the crowds. We started the visit with a hike to the top of the waterfalls, where we followed a footpath away from the cliff and across a single plank bridge (!) to the source of the falls. Just as we’d hoped, we were the only ones there, and enjoyed a swim in the (very fresh!) water as it ran towards the falls.

On our way back down, we stopped for a swim at a few of the vividly blue travertines. The pools were absolutely stunning, and actually they weren’t nearly as busy as we’d feared – the whole place looked like the Garden of Eden.

But the best part of the waterfalls was possibly the bear sanctuary near the entrance. The sanctuary provides a very comfortable home to wild Asiatic Moon Bears that have been rescued from poachers who had previously kept them in cages for their valuable bile. Any bears that can’t be safely released back into the wild are given a home here or at one of the other sanctuaries run by Free the Bears. The bears seemed to love the wooden constructions in their enclosure – most of them were snoozing with one or two legs draped over the edge, and one was even relaxing in a hammock!

The hill

Soaring above Luang Prabang is Phousi Hill – a popular spot to watch the red sunset reflected in the Mekong River. Due to a scheduling anomaly, we arrived at the summit more than two hours before sunset, so we enjoyed the views through the haze from a rocky outcrop before plonking ourselves down on a bench to appreciate any hint of a passing breeze.

What followed sounded similar to everyone else’s experience at Angkor Wat, as our sunset view was gradually replaced by a view of other tourists’ backs. At times like this, I try to remind myself that we’re not in traffic, but we are traffic, so we did our best to enjoy the people watching in lieu of the sunset. Fortunately, we’d also brought couple of beers, which made the experience a lot more enjoyable than it could have been!

The food

Luang Prabang has a reputation for its international (read: French) cuisine, which seemed to cater exclusively to tourists. However, as is often the case, we found that the best food we ate was in local restaurants. One of our favourite meals was at a restaurant just around the corner from the Xieng Thong temple, where we tried Kow Beeak Sen – a soup containing slightly chewy tapioca noodles, pork, fried garlic and plenty of fresh bean shoots. To this, we added a squeeze of lime and a teaspoon of fiery chilli paste, which further elevated the experience. In fact, this really elevated the experience for Sara, since I put a very generous dollop into her bowl. By the end of the meal, she had a couple of tears running down her cheek, but still insisted she wouldn’t have it any other way!

We also thoroughly enjoyed eating at Nang Tao restaurant, where we tried Laap, a Lao favourite stir fry of meat, onion and fresh mint. I loved the contrast of the fresh herbs against the saltiness of the meat, and vowed to eat this dish a few more times before leaving Laos.

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Having zoomed north by rail, it was now time to fully embrace travelling slowly with a two-day cruise up the mighty Mekong River towards the golden triangle where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet.

We were genuinely quite sad to move on from Nong Khai – it was such a lovely town and we’d just had the most restful few days of our entire trip. Our guesthouse host Julian (a chap from the Cotswolds, of all places) kindly gave us a lift to the border, and despite reading many stories of all the spurious ‘fees’ we would need to pay to the border guards, we sailed through in no time and with no nonsense. We couldn’t believe our luck when a green local bus was waiting as we came out, as we’d read that it could be difficult to find. When a taxi driver threw himself in our path to tell us that it was going to the wrong place (not that he knew where we were heading) and that we would have to walk a “long, long way” unless we got into his taxi, this only gave us more confidence that this was indeed the correct bus, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so concerned with stopping us getting close enough to check the number. “Great,” we replied, “We like walking!” He did not look impressed.

We’d read that Vientiane was Southeast Asia’s most relaxed capital city, and it really was – in fact, I reckon it would probably be in the running to win a worldwide contest. We borrowed bikes from our hotel (which were free – we were soon to discover why when we actually tried to ride them) and set our sights on Vientiane’s biggest sight and national symbol: Pha That Luang.

The legend is that a stupa was built here as early as the 3rd century BC to enshrine a piece of Buddha’s breastbone. Through a series of paintings depicting the stupa, we learnt about its history, from first construction, to repeated plunder by various occupying forces, to restoration by the French in 1900 and finally painting it gold to give it today’s appearance. Only the very tip of the stupa is real gold, and we think we could see it glinting a little brighter in the sunlight.

Although this was the city’s biggest sight, it was blissfully quiet, further cementing Vientiane’s reputation for us. The temple next door was a totally different story – there seemed to be a party in full swing! We had to walk through this to get back to our bikes because, in usual style, we’d inadvertently approached Pha That Luang through a side entrance. But we were glad we did, as there was a really joyful atmosphere, with food stalls, an open-sided marquee where people were eating together, and at least two sets of competing music. The following day was a religious holiday so we assumed that the two were related, but who knows – perhaps every Sunday is like this.

Later, we cycled to the COPE (Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise) Visitor Centre, which had been highly recommended. Even to this day, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world (per capita), following the bombardment they suffered during the Vietnam War, and unexploded ordinance (UXO) in the form of cluster munitions still contaminates 25% of villages across the country. Because of this, everyday activities such as farming and cooking are hugely risky and a source of great anxiety for Lao people living in uncleared areas. We learnt about changes that had been made in the data-driven process used to plan and prioritise clearance activities and the impact this had had on the speed at which areas are cleared, which was such a brilliant illustration of the power of data (not that we needed much convincing).

One of the most surprising things we learnt was that some resourceful people use the metal from the casings of ‘bombies’ (as they are known locally) in all sorts of everyday objects around the house. Because of the familiarity that this breeds (and the lure of the scrap metal trade, which is technically illegal but still widespread), children in particular are at risk of forgetting what they have been taught about UXO when they find a metal object. Tragically, this means that 40% of those killed or injured by UXO are children. The centre described the ongoing outreach work that aims to change this, by removing (with permission) these everyday objects made from ‘bombies’ from communities and reinforcing teaching in children about the risks associated with UXO. Finally, we learnt about the work that COPE is doing to provide affected people with prosthetics and ongoing support.

To be honest, we didn’t really expect to end up in the visitor centre of a rehabilitation charity during our brief time in the city, but then again, we didn’t find a whole lot to do in Vientiane. This does a massive disservice to the centre though, because it turned out to be a very worthwhile stop – the exhibits were in equal parts fascinating, devastating and inspiring and gave us a real insight into Laos’ story.

Our final stop in Vientiane was the city’s very own Arc de Triomphe replica, Patuxay. This was built in the 1960s using concrete donated by the United States but intended for use in construction of a new airport, which made us chuckle. Although the exterior looked like a little slice of Paris (and was surrounded by a roundabout just like the original), our favourite part was the tiling on the interior of the soaring arch, which was inspired by the Taj Mahal.

Next, we were very excited to have secured (through a slightly bonkers system) tickets on the Lao-China Railway to take us on an inconceivably-speedy, 2-hour ride to Luang Prabang, a journey that can take literally days by road.