Why I Don't Cook Much Anymore

As of today, we have been in Vientiane for a month. In that time, we have yet to cook a meal for ourselves. Actually, a couple of days ago, I scrambled some eggs to try out our new French-made frying pan (we eschewed the cheaper, lead-infused Chinese one) that I felt compelled to buy. Other than that, we have eaten every lunch/dinner in some local restaurant (breakfast - coffee and fresh fruit - we eat at home). The reasons are two-fold. One, shopping for local foodstuffs seems a bit labor intensive, and our kitchen, with its two-burner hotplate and lack of counter space, is not conducive to culinary extravaganza. Two, the restaurants here are ridiculously cheap and the food is fantastic.

Our first ten days in town we mostly wandered around Central Vientiane looking for places to eat. We had fresh fish on the banks of the Mekong (whipped up by a lady we dubbed the “Galloping Gourmet”), sampled local Lao cuisine with its Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese influences, enjoyed lovely salads w/ fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber, and delved into the simple pleasures of kao niao, or sticky rice, the staple of every good Lao meal. We couldn’t help but notice immediately that everything was cheap, and everything was delicious.

How cheap? It is difficult to spend more than five bucks on lunch for two or more than ten bucks on dinner. The most expensive thing either of us has ever ordered in any restaurant is less than six dollars. The large Beer Lao, enough for two nice frosty mugs, is a little over a dollar. We haven’t tried any of the highly regarded French restaurants in town yet (although we both have birthdays coming up!), but they too are supposed to be absurdly inexpensive for the quality of the cuisine.

How delicious? I told Jen today as we were completing our lunch of red coconut curry chicken w/ fresh basil and pork and spring onion omelet (served with soup & rice, of course), washed down by icy fresh lemonade, “I’ve forgotten my previous life as an eater”. As I paid the bill of $4.80, I realized that I was just exaggerating a little. One place, a restaurant called Mak Phet (Red Pepper), has provided me with probably the most extraordinary flavor experience ever. My taste buds may never recover! BTW, it is staffed by really sweet ex-street kids, who are trained to be cooks and waiters (see slide show). It is just one of many places we have had fabulous Lao food.

Now that we live out in the neighborhoods, we have a rotation of 5 or 6 local places where we eat. All are within a six minute walk of our house. The cheapest, a lunch place called Nang Vong, sells a lunch special (three home-cooked items, plus rice, soup and plenty of cold drinking water) for $1.20. Ridiculous! The most expensive, Kop Kap, features a whole fresh fish, smothered in garlic, red pepper and fresh herbs, for $4.40. Absolutely out of this world (if you like that sort of thing), it is the most expensive item on the menu!

The Lao take their food seriously, consistently producing high quality dishes for relatively little cost. That being said, there are countless street food vendors, literally on every corner, churning out steaming plates of god-knows-what at a fraction of what we are paying. This is where most of the locals eat. I guess we are still conditioning ourselves for the inevitable foray into the “grilled frog on a stick” or “deep fried insects” that represents a true exploration of Lao cuisine. [Photos courtesy of J.M. Herrin]

The Soi Dogs

You’ve hear of Alley Cats and Slum Dogs, but here we have “Soi” Dogs. A “soi” is an alley or little road . . . and a dog (no metaphor here) is a real four-legged yelping, barking, pooing, peeing, growling, mating, howling furry “man’s best friend”.

Let me back up a bit. There are on-the-inside dogs which have collars full bellies and yards. They live on-the-inside of the gates; they have owners. Then you have the on-the-outside dogs . . . strays, if you will. They run in packs and live on-the-outside of the gates that surround the homes enclosing the on-the-inside dogs. They run up and down the neighborhood alleys doing what dogs do – they are the Soi Dogs. They seem to like our little street best, hanging out to instigate all kinds of howling matches (and I mean full-on midnight choruses of seemingly 100’s of dogs!) and dog fights that the on-the-inside dogs can’t wait to get involved in. You see . . . the ‘on-the-inside’ life is kind of boring compared to the Soi Dogs’ . . . it’s kind of like a banking nerd longing to be a motorcycle bad boy.

It’s a bit crazy when the “worlds collide”. Mostly noisy . . . but when the on-the-inside dogs get a chance to escape (you can tell as they are wearing a collar or have a piece of lead rope hanging from their neck), they frolic with the Soi dogs, regardless of the throngs of puppies the inter-mating produces (no spaying or neutering here) or the bloody gashes the inter-fighting causes. There’s one little guy (see photo) that lives next door, I call him “Shorty”. Every time the Soi dogs come by he runs out of his yard to sniff them and invariably ends up getting bitten on the face spending the next 10 minutes rubbing it in the dirt writhing in joyous dog pain.

As the grass is always greener, the Soi dogs like to pretend that they live in real houses. One neighbor keeps his gate open and the Soi dogs let themselves in and hang on his porch. Regularly, they file out into the alley to cause trouble – dump over a trash basket, get into a fight, or follow a monk back to the temple . . . . aha this is the secret of their survival.

I have a theory that the monks feed them, and that is how their kind thrive! As we pass our neighborhood temple on morning walks, we see many more Soi dogs grinning at us from their protected position inside the temple entry way. They never really bother people – just terrorize with their noise, poo, and garbage rummaging. Some of them are more stoic and poised in their Soi status – see photo of the dark grey one with a beard we’ve named “Tolkien”. However, there are others like “Owen Meany” with a damaged leg and permanent limp . . . all he ever does is growl viciously with teeth bared at all other dogs, Soi or otherwise. None of them pay any attention to humans . . . the most you’ll ever hear directed at you is some kind of puffing half-bark coming from the females who may have puppies somewhere. I guess people are not mean to them as they don’t seem to be afraid of us . . . is that a good thing?

I Went All the Way to Vientiane, and All I Got Was This Lao T-Shirt!

Yes, it’s taken us a while to get our second installment together and posted here. Our excuse: we’ve been really busy! Jen and I have been in Laos for a fortnight (a coupla weeks, you Yanks) and have been engaged in many important activities, most of them undertaken in debilitating heat and humidity. This is the first country where I’ve been forced to use my umbrella for protection from the sun…and it’s not even the hottest part of the year (can’t wait for April). Yikes!

We spent our first ten days in the lovely Hotel Khamvongsa, which is right in the center of Vientiane’s “scene”, near the Mekong River. Most of our time was spent wandering from café to restaurant, from bar to “minimart” - anywhere that air conditioning was installed and running on high. Luckily, the coffee, fresh fruit shakes, local cuisine and Beer Lao are shockingly delicious. (A dedicated entry on food and drink will follow soon). Actually, while living at the hotel, we started getting up at 6:00 AM and walking for an hour before the sun became a fireball. It is relatively cool at that hour, but we still returned dripping with sweat.

Our “official” status in Laos was, unfortunately, still in flux when we arrived, and we had to participate in a series of diplomatic meetings with various local functionaries to try and iron out the wrinkles in our visa and work situations. We sat, smiled, and sipped tea a lot. Oh, and collected a lot of business cards. Allegedly, our long-term visas and identification cards are now in the works and should come thru in the next week or two. Fingers crossed.

On the non-official front, although living in the Hotel Khamvongsa was pretty sweet, house-hunting was high on our agenda. We hit it hard for three days on our first weekend in Vientiane, driving around with our real estate agent/bartender, the inimitable Wong (see photo). We looked at a dozen or more places in our price range, from one bedroom apartments to four bedroom houses. We actually ended up choosing the place we looked at first, which also happened to be the cheapest. Our pad is a brand-new, townhouse style apartment in a complex of four. Two stories, it has two upstairs bedrooms, two bathrooms and tile throughout. It wasn’t furnished, so we had to meet with the owner to negotiate the furnishings. She is a doctor at the local hospital and speaks very good English, luckily for us. Nice lady. We agreed to pay her an extra 50 bucks a month if she bought a bunch of stuff we wanted. Consequently, we have a new washing machine, fridge, small range, microwave, kingsize bed, nice wardrobes, etc. Most importantly, we have new A/C units in every room. AHHHH…We’ve been living here for six days and have been busy buying small items for the house each day, trudging about town in the heat. Actually, for long hauls, we have been riding in the modified motorcycle thingies known as tuk-tuks (see photo).

Anyway, we’re happy to be in our new place. Our neighborhood is maybe 3 kilometres out from the center of town. We live on a small, partially paved street, near an immense, beautiful Buddhist temple (Wat Sisangvone). We have identified a handful of good restaurants within five minutes walk, and we continue to eat very well and very cheaply. I finally go to work at the university next week (so the rumor goes) and am anxious to get back in the classroom. (Photos courtesy of J.M. Herrin).