Luang Prabang, Laos

Now, time to analyse Laos !

We flew to Luang Prabang from Siem Reap, quick ride to our hotel and straight into town. We found an amazing French place that had some lovely cheese platters with white wine.. Followed by the night market. I feel that the Laotian night market had more authentic stuff than any other I had been to, less of those fabulous touristy tops that say Laos. Laos, I think, is a slight bit more expensive than Cambodia. They also prefer to use their own currency, kip, instead of US dollars (which are also accepted in shops) unlike Cambodia, where US dollars are used more commonly than the local currency (riel).

We were upgraded to a very lovely room for our first night. In the morning we woke up to a fresh hotel breakfast. I was really upset that the hotel didn't serve coffee (what is that all about!) so we headed down to the Mekong river, less than a minute walk away, to enjoy 'second breakfast'. We rented out some bicycle for the day and enjoyed the day by just driving around the city and along the river, occasionally stopping for more food and drinks. Luang Prabang is a breathtaking, peaceful small city filled with flowers, temples and amazing food. The Mekong river definitely makes the city more attractive and fun, there are a few bamboo bridges over it providing the possibility to see the side of the city most locals live on.

We had the most fabulous dinner by the river before we headed for a Mekong river sunset cruise. We spent two hours roaming around the river, ending the day with the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Sun falling into the river in all the colours of the spectrum.

The next day we rented a motorbike to drive to the Kuang Si waterfalls. The road took us past local villages, rice fields and mountain vales. There is a small tourist village by the waterfalls where you can buy food and little souvenirs. At the entrance to the waterfalls is a bear sanctuary. The bears have been saved from the wild after an injury. One of the cuties was missing a pawn and another had had a brain surgery. The place was quite fascinating and the bears were messing around, enjoying the sun. The waterfalls were turquoise. Just turquoise. It was beautiful, unfortunately, so cold that I only dipped myself in and got out. For lunch we had a whole grilled fish with some vegetable skewers.

We found a lovely place at the end of the market street that has some sunbeds and books on the rooftop so I spent the next day there just reading classics and drinking beer Lao. Such a relaxing day, true holiday feeling. The trip was all about them sunsets so we climbed to mount Phousi to see the sunset that night. There are steps all the way up and a fee of 2,5 dollars. Views were incredible yet again. We also discovered a yummy street food buffet for two dollars so we feasted that night. I met some great people in the city so I spent two evenings playing cards against humanity at the local night club; Utopia.

For our final day, we had booked a 'rice is life' tour to go see a local rice farm; Living Land Farm, and to try some farming! The tour allowed us to get to know all the 14 steps rice farming has. They include, picking the right grains, planting them, turning over the field with a water buffalo, harvesting, peeling the grains and grinding it. The experience was one of a kind and so much fun. I will personally never buy Uncle Ben's again, rice farming is such hard work, and it requires plenty of skills. From a grain to plate is a four-month process. At the end of the tour, we made our own sugarcane juice and had a tasting of various rice products.

All in all, I am very blessed, my holiday was absolutely fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone. #onceinalifetime


Haha bye,


Mira

Cambodia

Happy weekend everyone !


Last two weeks I have been busy trying to avoid processing the fact that it's back to work again and another two months to go ! 45 work days to be accurate.

Friday, first day of tet. We had a car ordered to drive us from Hai Phong to the airport in Hanoi. There were four of us so the private car was worth the money, about 1 million VND. The ride was actually fun, and we got to use the new highway between Hai Phong and Hanoi so it was really quick as well.

Happily to Cambodia, greeted by a heatwave at the entrance of the airport, along with our tuk tuk. We dumped our bags into the room and headed out to explore the pub street. First taste of traditional Cambodia curry; amok. Super yummy.

Next morning we united with some more friends at the national history museum and continued our way towards the Angkor Thom temple group. A three day pass to the Angkor temples costs 40 USD. Monkeys, ancient temples, go pro, pictures. Afterwards super yummy food, some drinks, card games and united with a few more of our friends ! Don't want to bore you with further details, everything was amazing, I love Cambodian food and the city, all the temples, are so worth seeing with your own eyes! The night market was awesome, Cambodian people are nice to haggle with.

I ate a scorpion. It was indeed crunchy like everyone keeps on saying! Then I ate a snake. It was very chewy and tasted quite odd. Definitely had more flavour than the scorpion. My friends ate some tarantulas as well but I didn't dare. Until the final night, when I feasted one after all - it was disgusting. The torso was huge and tasted like a pate gone off, there were some nasty white eggs inside it. Took a long island ice tea to flush that taste out of my mouth.

Second day of temples started at 4.30 am when we headed to the Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise raise behind its towers. It was rather chilly and pitch black dark. A crowd of people on the path to the inner temple lighting the way with torches. It was magical, making me feel like I was part of an ancient religious ritual. The sunrise was worth waking up at 4.30. We explored the temple before heading back to town for a nap.

Side note: the word 'wat' means a temple. All the temples together are called Angkor, Angkor Wat is the name for the main temple which appears in most of the tourist pictures.

The six of us headed for the temples together on our final day. We had planned a day trip to two temples that were nearly an hour drive away from the city; Pre rup and Banteay Srei. This was my favourite day of the holiday. The weather and company were amazing ! The temples were stunning and the scenery on the tuk tuk ride there was fabulous. The ride was rather long but we entertained ourselves with silly games. Precisely what I would describe as a perfect day.

Good dinner and some wine on our last night, final run through the markets and then a pleasant sleep. In the morning, we had our first proper breakfast, purchased some art and met up for a good bye lunch. Cambodian food is the best I have tried in South East Asia, the flavours and spices suit my taste perfectly, and finding vegetarian food was not tricky at all.

Then off to Laos! More about that in the next post, on Monday I think haha.

Love,


Mira

Sitting on the wall of Angkor Wat. Happy life !

Side thought; Volunteering

A long time ago, I read this article written by a girl who had done some volunteering in Africa before. She wrote that the only issue with the job the organisation was doing in Africa was sending her there in person. At first, I was shocked; I had always wanted to volunteer and thought so highly of volunteers. After reading her article, I couldn't help but to agree.

Westerners travel to third world countries to boost their ego like they have been chosen to save the locals and to make the a difference in their lives. I have heard many horror stories about how children are being kidnapped from their parents into orphanages just to attract tourists and volunteers. Or how the schools volunteers build are being torn down after their departure so that the next group can build it again.

In the article, the girl wrote about how well she was treated and how her presence merely disrupted the daily life in the village. Most volunteering programs are very expensive, and it has always been unclear to me how that money is being spent. The writer argued that we should rather spend that money by sending it directly to the communities so that they can have it for useful purposes, instead of hosting westerners.

I am not saying that most volunteers don't have the best of intentions, as I am sure that they do. However, I thought that this article raised some good notions on the other side of volunteering. In my opinion, many of us are traveling and working towards 'giving the man a fish' , but only a few are teaching the man how to fish himself. This ensures that volunteering work will continue among the less-developed areas.

There is an illusion that the systems in the poor countries are faulty, and that they can only be fixed by implementing the western culture. When we travel we should keep in mind that some cultures can be thousands of years old, and even when we cannot understand the traditions and practices of these cultures, we shouldn't judge. Just because we are unhappy with certain elements of a culture, it doesn't mean that the locals are.

Vietnamese culture is more than a thousand years old. I certainly don't understand a lot of it, and by no means have I been free of judgement. I must honestly say that I truly despise some of the Vietnamese habits, though now, I do my best to try and accept them. One thing is clear; no matter what I teach or how I act as a role model for my students, it won't change anything. My students will never be westerners but that's okay, they are great the way they are and they are happy. The culture is old, upheld and valued by the people, and it works for them. One size does not fit all, sometimes we have to observe and love all the imperfections. The good, the bad and the ugly.

This has been one of the important lessons my students taught me.


Mira

The aftermath

Hello everyone,

I've just spent ten days in Cambodia and Laos ! I did this trip without any electronics so got some posts coming up to bring you all up to date. This one will be about the Thursday before my trip; making chung cakes at Thai Phien high school. Making chung cakes represents well the preparation that took place before tet and is unique to Vietnam.

On Thursday morning we arrived to Thai Phien high school in our ao dais. It didn't take a minute till we were in front of the camera. The main event of the Thursday's celebration was a chung cake making competition.

Chung cake is a traditional dish eaten during the tet holiday. My gallop confirms that nearly everyone loves this cake. The cake consists of four main ingredients; special leafs, sticky rice, green peas and pork meat. Luckily, I got to take part in this competition and am now somewhat an expert!

The cake is made into a square wooden frame. First, the leafs are carefully folded into the frame to from the base of the wrapping for the cake.  Once you have your leafs in place, you have to pour a cup of raw sticky rice on the leafs and pad it tightly. Then you must add the beans. Two slices of pork are added between two layers of beans, followed by another cup of rice. Chung cake is boiled for 10 - 12 hours so the wrapping has to be really tight. The leafs are folded around the cake like on a Christmas gift. The package is tied with thin bamboo straps. After observing different ways of making the cakes it became clear to me that it is all about the style of the maker and small details. My team had our peas cooked and kneaded into a tight ball whereas other teams used raw, lose peas. Also, there are different ways of folding the leafs into the frame as well as in making the ties with the bamboo strings.

I was able to try two different ways of wrapping the cakes, and eventually, I was really happy with the result. Before tet these cakes are sold on the streets for 50 000 VND (2 euros) each. Once cooked, one cake weights about a kilo. The cake is meant to be shared by eight people.

Each of the competing teams make 20 chung cakes and packed them tightly into huge pots. We left our students to guard the cakes for the evening and picked our own ones up on Friday morning. I didn't personally try the cake since I am a vegetarian but apparently they were good.

Later about my tet-holiday!

Mira

TET preparations

Twp days to TET !

It has been so fascinating to be able to be in Vietnam and to get to follow the preparation for the TET-holiday. TET is the biggest celebration in Vietnam, it is the celebration of the lunar new year. 

This year the holiday takes place between the 5th and the 14th of February. The week prior to the holiday is spent by cleaning and decorating the house. Some schools even organise a day when the students join in for the cleaning of the school. After this, schools arrange an event to start off the holiday. I have been invited to one of these events at my main high school; Thai Phien. Thai Phien is the second best high school in Hai Phong, and my favourite school. The events will be very glorious, and will include for example a competition of making the traditional Chung Cakes. Chung Cake is made of rice and shredded pork meat. I shall be wearing a bright red national dress of Vietnam; ao dai (pronounced ao zai). 

One of the main TET decorations is a tree; this sort of reminds me of the western tradition of a Christmas tree. It is tradition to buy a peach or a pomelo tree and decorate it for the holiday. People also buy branches of cherry blossoms. At the moment all our main road sides are full of street vendors selling these trees, the prices go up to ten million. Some of the trees are enormous; I have seen some very imaginative ways of transporting these trees. A friend of mine got hit in the head but someone pushing a tree into the back of his bike! All my life, I never thought that it would even be possible to be smacked by a tree when standing at traffic lights. 

Unfortunately, this holiday has made the roads a lot more dangerous than what they usually are. Traffic in Vietnam tends to be a little crazy on daily basis but not it has been taken to another level. The tree smacking is just one of many examples. This week I have seen so many things accidentally falling off bikes, causing others to quickly jump on their brakes. I have had to develop some ninja moves recently due to people irrationally driving to the wrong direction, randomly doing a 180 when they have spotted a tree they love or bouncing zigzag from one side to the other. The average speed has dropped by more then 10 km/ an hour. That's not bad news, it is nice to browse the trees while driving. Not to worry, I am being very careful. Just half an hour ago saw another crash. Luckily, not a bad one. 

A lot of my schools have cancelled classes this week so I have had a lot of time to prepare for the upcoming holiday. I couldn't be more excited to go to Cambodia and Laos. It turned out that a lot of my friends are headed to Siem Reap as well so some dates have been arranged. We have planned such a great itinerary for us! Two of my friends are flying from Ha Noi on Friday as well so we are all taking a private car there together. The car costs a million, the drive lasts for approximately two hours. It is ridiculous how cheap you can get a private car ! It will be about 10 euros per person.
For now, very excited for the Thursday's event. I will be keeping you up to date with some pictures afterwards! And then Cambodia and Laos. I hope you all have a good skiing holiday (if you are in a country that does celebrate that), or otherwise a fabulous February ! 

Happy new year :) chúc mừng năm mới ! (Chug mug namm mooi)

Mira