Luang Prabang or how I fell in love with sticky rice

In a previous post i stated that the Lonely Planet describes Luang Prabang as '...a tonic for the soul' with 'gleaming temples, French-era palace and villas' and 'it is a Unesco Heritage Listed' town. True, it is a beautiful and idylic town. At Luang Prabang, the Nam Kham river joins the Mekong, creating a small peninsula which is the old quarter. This old quarter is now full of guest house and Main (High) Street full of bars and restaurants catering predominately and I would say fully for the tourist trade. The new Laos?

I did stay 3 days. As theme parks go it was not bad. Spent the days eating and one day i seem to have joined a biker gang, pedal rather than petrol power bikes. When I left the slow boat, our group has grown to 10, 7 Brits, 2 German & a Kiwi. Not much more to say. We all managed to get into the same Guest House - Just shows what Luang Prabang has become.

In Luang Prabang I did discover Sticky Rice. I have come across it before in Thailand. On the cooking course we made Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango. However in Laos the majority of the rice grown is sticky rice. It is there rice of choice. I looked on Wikipedia and it is also known as Glutinous Rice. Kia told me that it is the rice which is used in Sushi. It sticks together but in a nice way. You eat it like bread. Heaven.

On leaving Luang Prabang, I resumed my solo travels, Ulli decided to head north - Ulli it was a pleasure - and I decided to head south to Vientiane via Vang Vieng.