Just outside Luang Prabang there is this amazing waterfall cascading down a limestone creek.

We decided to get up early to go a take photos, so that we could be there early before all the crowds arrived.





















At the entrance to the park there is also a Bear rehabilitation centre. They rescue bears from captivity and keep them until it is safe to release them back into the wild (if ever). The bears have a big area and seem to love climbing and sleep in the hammocks provided.

Our kids had a blast of a time in Laos. They loved each other company (for the most part) and sometime looked like real little travellers.








They were respectful at the temples and even offered a prayer.





At other times they behaved like animals and should be lock away in a cage.





But for the most part they liked exploring things that us adults wouldn't see such as this crater from a crash landed U.F.O.

What I especially remember from my last trip to Laos was the kids. One of my most cherished photos is one of two little girls holding a bouquet of flowers that I took 20 years ago (it is on this blog if you look for it through the search function).

The children are still there. They are still very shy, dirty and smiling.











They make up their own games such as these kids at a school playing marbles with tamarind seeds.







These kids were playing a game where the kid under the table had to poke the feet of the kids above the table.



And some things never change, kids teasing each other.





The girls in the school yard 'hang out'.



Visiting a local school was great for our kids to get a glimpse of how other kids live.







Along the road we stopped and a family was outside with the mother breastfeeding her son in their outdoor living room. This is where everything happened such as the cooking, washing, feeding etc.





The chicken were running around freely



Here is a rare shot that Kim took with my camera in it.



It is a very family oriented life they live

For getting around the towns in Laos we mainly used Tuk-Tuks. These are small motorbike powered minibuses and the experience can be very mixed. Most of them are generally good, but some have bad brakes have a plume of smelly two stroke engine smoke trailing behind them. We could easily fit our two families into one and I'd joke that there would even be room for another couple of adults.



The kids loved the tuk-tuks and have the fresh air blowing in their hair while riding.



The only downside is that you'd never quite know what the fare would be until you started bargaining and from town to town the fares seemed to be very different. Even though I believe I am reasonable proficient at bargaining, I'm still confident that we paid more that the locals would be paying for the same trips.











For the longer trips we would catch either local buses (mini vans) or in some instances it was worthwhile us hiring a private bus as we were enough people to fill it.

From Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang we hired a private van taking us across the mountain pass at Kasi. Last time I went through here it was in an open bus and at the pass it was raining and really cold. This time round we had a beautiful clear day with a great view of the valley below from the top.





The week before they had a lot of rain and a landslide had taken out large parts of the last section of road (I read in the local newspaper a few days earlier that the road was closed). Our little van was struggling getting enough grip and our driver had to reverse to get enough of a run-up in the next attempt to make it through the steep and muddy section.

The larger trucks were really struggling getting through.

The morning markets are interesting. This is where the locals still go to buy their fresh produce and all kinds of specialties are being sold here. It would be easy to go here and get the ingredients for some really delicious food.

There are also some unusual things that we don't see in our western kitchens. such as:

Dried Squids:



Fresh fish - of cause, but this have sharp teeth.


A protein and herb table that would make most chefs (and diners) salivate:






The Chillies in Lao are more hot than in Thailand - We loved the heat.


A pig:


River crabs:


Beetles:


Dried rats:




Caterpillar - these are yummi when fried:


Frogs:

River snails:


Dried squid, shrimps and fish:

During the dry season the people of Luang Prabang builds traditional bamboo bridges across the smaller river. This saves them a lot of time (and cost) to cross directly into the centre of town rather than a long detour to the other larger bridges.

It also earns them a small income to charge foreigners a small fee to cross the bridges.

They still manufacture silk they way they used to. It was interesting for the kids to see the process from small caterpillar eggs that hatch to worms to the production of the silk itself.






I had always wondered where the colour blue (Indigo) came from. I knew it used to come from a seashell, but I was fairly certain that this wouldn't be the case here. It turns out that they use a special leaf from a plant that when mixed with water and left fermenting/oxidising turns into a blue dye.





They also use plants for most of the other colours.





After they spin the thread they use traditional weaves to make it into pieces of garment. These days the silk garments are fairly expensive - hundreds of dollars, but it used to be really cheap.

A two hour boat ride north of Luang Prabang is the Pak Ou cave. Since we were traveling two families the best way to get there was to hire a slow boat just for us.



The flow boats are long narrow boats that are ideal for navigating the Mekong River. This part of the river is full of underwater rocks but the boats seem to navigate these treacherous waters with ease.

Having the boat for ourselves gave us more flexibility with regards to how long we wanted to spend at the cane and also meant that we have more room to move around.



The front of the boar is where the captain sits and steers the boat. After this there is a section for the passengers followed by a small pump toilet and then the living quarters for the captain and his family. Out the back there is a small kitchen for them to do the cooking.

The cave is upstream into an area full of limestone mountains.



The many boats moor at a long and wobbly floating bamboo bridge that takes you to the cave itself.





The cave itself is not big but it is full of small Buddhas that have been put there over hundreds of years. You can tell that this used to be an important place of worship.





Now however the place is so crowded with tourists (guilty here too) coming in on boats that it is hard to move around. I could not stop myself from taking this photo of Buddha holding up his hands to stop more boats arriving.



At the top of the hill the hill there is what I think is a more 'pleasant' cave. It is equally interesting and much less crowded because most tourists don's make it up the many steps to the top.

The traditional Lao Lau is still being made. Just north of Luang Prabang on the river there is a little village on the river called Whiskey village whos main income is from the production of Lao Lau.



When I was there two decades ago this is what the locals were drinking (now they drink beer instead). I still remember the foul taste from the home brew that was distilled in large oil drums after having been fermented in large clay pots. Whenever I see it I always wonder if distilling strong alcohol right next to an open flame is the wisest of ideas!?!?





The process itself hasn't changed, but these days most of the whiskey is sold to tourists and I tastes a lot more pleasant that it did back then.

The food in Laos is good. It is traditional cooking mostly still cooked over an open fire.





You see them start cooking the food well before sunrise in big pots.

The food itself is mostly a fusion of Thai and Vietnamese. It has all the noodle soups from Vietnam, but with the more street food and spice of Thailand. The picture below is a typical noodle soup with a traditional cube of coagulated blood.





We were eating a lot from small street type restaurants following the rule that is had to be popular with the locals. The logic behind this is that the locals would know what is good and would also be choosy regarding the quality of the food, so chances are that it would be fresh and not cause food poisoning (none of us or the kids had any issues on the trip).






There are some dubious food there, such as some of the meat BBQ where they sometimes have the meet cooked earlier on the side of the BBQ and then just re-heat it when you order it.







Also be careful with some of the food stalls where the food may have been sitting there for most of the day and often from the day before.





From a 'snack' perspective there are some personal favourites that I absolutely love such as the BBQ fried squid - the packet stuff is just not the same.



Also the Bamboo and coconut fried rice is delicious - they sell them at bus and train stations and especially the purple rice one is yummi!



The freshly made puffed breads over an open fire - they will use two rakes to flip them until they are done.

Kim likes baking too and these days she will ask Aiden to help her.

Her cakes usually looks much better than any of my efforts.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to bake Ciabata bread.

It is a long process that takes about 24 hours (first you have to make this yeast and flour sponge which you then later use for the end result).

I substituted normal flour for wholemeal. This was the end result.



The taste was ok, but it was too dry for my liking...so will have to try again one day.

Light bulbs are really rare now as you can't buy them in the shops any longer.

We still have one in the cupboard so I decided to have a bit of fun with it one evening...

Vivid Sydney was on again this year and in my opinion better than the previous years.

Because of the kids it was hard to find the time to explore, but I did manage to head in there one evening to get some photos from the classic angles.

Lucas is now 9 month old and the other day we went to the park to do some Autumn photos with him.

The photo of the day was definitely this one of Kim and Lucas having a moment together.



It was hard because he wanted to crawl around and play and because it was the middle of the day the light was pretty harsh.



We also tried to take some at one of the small bridges in the park but they were shooting a commercial shoot there and Lucas was more interested in trying to get into the water than posing.



And when we tried a family photo he didn't want to sit still.

For Lucas 8 month photo we decided to do a profile photo of the four of us just like we had with Aiden.



A bit more difficult this time because there we two kids and getting them to look in the right direction and keep the right face expression.

Last week it was Aidens 3rd Birthday.

We celebrated it by singing happy birthday and having cake.



For his birthday he got a new car as well as some new shoes.

The other day was in the park with his daycare group to play at the playground.

While he was there he was bitten by some unknown insect and the morning after his whole face was swollen.



Fortunately he was happy enough and it didn't require any visits to a doctor.

Last weekend it was our Niece Emma's first birthday.

This was celebrated with lots of cakes and a jumping castle on which Aiden had lots of fun.

I just updated the map of the countries I have set my foot in...now 66 countries.

Africa	Rene(68)	Kim	Aiden	Lucas
Kenya	YES
Tanzania	YES
Uganda	YES
Egypt	YES
Tunesia	YES
Morocco	YES
Gambia	YES
Senegal	YES
South Africa	YES	YES	YES	YES
Zimbabwe	YES	YES	YES	YES
Zambia	YES	YES	YES	YES
Europe
Turkey	YES
Spain	YES	YES
France	YES	YES
Swizerland	YES	YES
Austria	YES	YES
Greece	YES	YES
Italy	YES
Lictenstein	YES
Vatican	YES	YES
Yougoslavia	YES
Croatia	YES	YES	YES
Slovenia	YES	YES	YES
Bosnia	YES	YES	YES
Montenegro	YES	YES	YES
Poland	YES
East Germany	YES
West Germany	YES	YES	YES
Belgium	YES	YES
Holland	YES	YES
Denmark	YES	YES	YES
Sweden	YES
Norway	YES
Finland	YES
Portugal	YES
Luxenbourg	YES
San Marino	YES
Monaco	YES	YES
Cyprus	YES
Hungary	(YES)	(YES)	(YES)
United Kingdom	YES	YES	(YES)
Americas
USA	YES	YES
Canada	YES
Mexico	YES	YES
Chile	YES	YES
Peru	YES	YES
Bolivia	YES	YES
Argentina	YES
Brasil	YES	YES
Asia
Japan	YES
Russia	YES
Malaysia	YES	YES
Thailand	YES	YES	YES	YES
Singapore	YES	YES	(YES)
Cambodia	YES
Laos	YES	YES	YES	YES
Phillipines	YES	YES	YES	YES
Burma/Myanmar	YES
Hong Kong	YES
Yemen	YES
Qatar	YES
Indonesia	YES	YES
Diego Garcia		YES
Vietnam		YES
India		YES
Australia/Pacific
Australia	YES	YES	YES	YES
New Zealand	YES	YES	YES	YES
New Caledonia	YES	YES	YES
French Polynesia (Tahiti / Bora Bora)	YES	YES	YES	(YES)
Vanuatu	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fiji	YES	YES	YES	YES