Food glorious food

To fit in with the locals, we have been doing a lot of sitting around, eating and drinking. There are no multi-national food places in Luang Prabang, which is very refreshing. It's nice to be able to walk around the town for hours and not see any golden arches or Starbucks. We have our favourite eateries and when the staff enthusiastically wave whenever they see you around in town, you know you've been there too much.

As I mentioned before, Luang Prabang has some amazing bakeries. Here's one of our favourites, 'Joma's'.

Joma's bakery

The prize for the best breakfast in Luang Prabang definitely goes to the Riverloft Cafe (below). This is definitely somewhere we've spent too much time. But with a huge 'Superbowl' on offer of yoghurt, fruit and honey-toasted muesli, what's not to like?!

Walking down the street the other day, we were approached my a friendly, if not slightly inebriated, Lao man who insisted we join their party. Each time a new baby was born in the village, they throw a street party complete with keyboard playing and middle aged people bopping. 

Bop bop bop

We have discovered the dream team for lunches. Two ladies - one selling baguettes and the other fruit shakes. These two ladies have the biggest smiles you've ever seen. We passed on the 'Happy Shake'...five times the price for a little herbal happiness added to your shake.

Shakes galore

Big smiles: one half of the lunch dream team

Another culinary highlight was this restaurant called Dyen Sabai. You have to get a little boat over to this restaurant in the wet season (there's a bamboo bridge in the dry season). There are little huts alongside the river. We ordered a beef Sindad - they remove a tile from the table, and put in a big fire pot containing hot coals, then it's up to you to cook your own food (which is actually an ingenious way of saving the chef's time). The vegetables go round the edge and cook in the soup, and you fry the beef on top. Despite the fact it's far too hot to have a BBQ in the little hut, it was pretty delicious.

Chef extraordinaire

Our sindad