Sao Lao

I love eating Lao Green Papaya Salad. I even packed a set of mortar and pestle in the suitcase so I can have my monthly dose of Tum Som or Som Tum.

Making Lao Green Papaya Salad.

Warm sticky rice goes great with Lao Green Papaya Salad.

It tastes best with fresh tomatoes. In this case I used wild organic tomatoes.

Lao Green Papaya Salad with Sticky Rice

I am fortunate enough to have found green papaya from Thailand or from other tropical countries here. Nye thinks I eat Som Tum almost daily, as stated in her Som Tum Going Inter post. She is quite right!

A few recipes for you to try: Green Papaya Salad by Lao Studies video clip, Lao-Style Papaya Salad by Naret Sihavong of Phuket Thai Restaurant, and my own version of Lao Green Papaya Salad.

Enjoy!

Alexandra Bounxouei was recently a guest star on Thai Game Show, Ching Roi Ching Rarn. She presented herself very well and told funny story about the time she was younger. Alexandra also told the audience about a scary moment, a ghost story.

Here is a six minutes clip of Alexandra on Ching Roi Ching Rarn.

Related: Alexandra Bounxouei’s profile page at Laomusic.la.

I like Chicken Larb on a bed of lettuce or salad mix. I am very fortunate to be able to find fresh herbs and spices at local grocery stores all year round. You can take a Lao girl out of Laos but you can’t take Lao food out of her, lol.

Chef Penn Hongthong has a simple and delicious recipe to follow: Chicken Lob.

Over here we celebrate Christmas for two days. We have the first Christmas and the second Christmas to spend with our family and friends. I like this tradition very much because if you can celebrate this occasion with both sides of your family. Johan and I had our first Christmas dinner together. I didn’t cook anything special and instead ordered Indonesian Food for the both of us.

For some reason I was not in the spirit of Christmas this year. Perhaps I feel guilty for being here instead of spending Christmas and New Year with my Mama or with my Papa. I have also been thinking about Grand-Mama and wondering if she is in a great deal of pain or not. I am also afraid that she might not be able to walk again since her accident. While I was with Johan and his family, now and then I thought about Grand-Mama and other people I know online, wondering if they are doing okay or not.

Johan took this picture and commented that I must have been thinking about Laos and my Grand-Mama. I told him that he was right.

I made some Christmas ornaments for the tree. Here is one of my contributions.

It has been a good year for better or worse. Just one more chapter or few pages to add to my book of life. I’m ready for more adventures!

Vientiane, the capital of Laos is a sleepy borough located by the Mekong river. It is rather a messy collection of villages than a real city. For a captial Vientiane has a little over 133,000 inhabitants. There is not much movement in the city but will soon be very active in the near future.

Laos was colonized by France in the 1890s and was part of the French Indochine (Laos, Cambodia and vietnam). The French chose Vientiane as administrative capital. Vientiane means “Sandalwood city” and is pronounced as Wieng Chan, but the French gave its “romantic” orthography to the city.

Here you can follow Floortje (the show host) to Vientiane and Luang Prabang. The video clip is about nine minutes long and in Dutch but that shouldn’t let it stop you from seeing the beauty of Vientiane and Luang Prabang (World Heritage City).

Since the collapse the Soviet Union in 1991, Laos has changed many rules and has rolled out the red carpet for foreign investors.

Vientiane is in a tempo for change. Nowhere else in Laos has modernisation gone more rapidly than in the capital. Although much of the old French style houses in the old districts have been expired and replaced, there are still plently of temples and colonial buildings to explore.

Enjoy your stay in Laos, wherever you desinations might be. While you are there, make sure you sample plenty of Lao food and Beer Lao, the best beer in Asia.

After more than 20 years of isolation, Laos has opened its door to the rest of the world. Now the country is accessible to foreign tourists. Laos is a a hot destination for many Europeans, including the Dutch. In the Great Adventure Travel Show, Floortje (the show host) travels to Laos to experience the great paradise before the country is infected with mass tourism.

This travel clip was made near the end of 2004 and Laos was not yet submerged with mass tourists, partly due to the lack of good infrastructure. But the lack of foreign influences in Laos since 1975 gives you a glimpse of the old Southeast Asia. Laos is seven times larger than the Netherlands but only has a little over six millions inhabitans (estimated) and the most populated areas are in the large cities. However, it has been said that the population can hear the rice grow due to its quiet nature of the country.

Although the infant mortality rate is high, almost half of the population is younger than 15 years old. The total life expectancy in Laos is 54 years. The Mekong river is 4,400 kilometers long and flows from Tibet through Laos to the South China sea. The Mekong is the vein of the country and serves as drinking water, wash water, swimming water, as well as a sewer. The mekong is one of the two longest rivers in Asia.

Here you can follow Floorjte’s steps from Amsterdam Airport to Paksé, a city with status as the capital of the south of Laos. The city is actually one large collection of small villages, and is for many travellers the starting point of their travel in Laos. In Paksé it becomes rapidly clear that religion plays an important role in the daily rountines of the people. Throughout the city you can find sacrifice spots and splendid Buddhist statues. The video clip is ten minutes long and in Dutch. While you might not understand the language, the beauty of Paksé, Laos is quite stunning.

In Laos you can spend the night at the most beautiful locations. The Tadfane Resort in the province of Champasak has not yet been discovered by many tourists due to its location. The resort lies hidden on a hill rock in the jungle. If you want combine entertainment with jungle excursions, then this is the spot to be. An overnight stay at this resort costs $32.00 for a double cabin (internet rates) or $40.00 (rack rates).

Pakse is the largest city of southern Laos but has few activities to do. The city is more of a starting point for the superb surroundings and for a visit to the Khmer ruins Wat Phu, which is 48 km away. The most beautiful view you can get of the city is from the Champasak Palace Hotel. The hotel has comfortable chambers with AC, starting at $40.00 per night and including breakfast. A good budget address to keep in mind is the Sedone Guesthouse. You can get a chamber with bathroom for about $5.00 - $7.00 per night.

Christmas is almost here. It’s cold and wet but I don’t think we will be getting a white Christmas this year. I don’t mind though and look forward to spring and summer already. When the warm weather gets here I will be hitting the beaches, from north to south. At the top of the list is Scheveningen Beach because I didn’t go there this year. Here are some photos of the beach I took in September of 2003.

This is the Kurhaus.

To the right is the red lighthouse.

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I weighted myself on the new scale yesterday and was happy to see another kilo gone! I am very happy with myself for getting back to my former lifestyle of not eating junk food, at least not on a regular basis. When I was living in the US, I didn’t even eat potato chips or drink pop. The only time I ate any thing sweet was on special occasions like birthday party, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter time.

Somehow I lost my discipline and started to enjoy food like cheese and tart since I came here. I even started to drink coffee on a daily basis more than a year ago. Posting in Food Blog 2006 at Laoplanet.net gave me an awareness of what I have been putting into my body.

My visit to the A - Team in August was the start of regaining my former self. I lost two kilos while I was there and later three more while I was home. Now I am 6 kg lighter than when I was at my hightest weight in December of 2004. I didn’t like the way I look back then and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how I look in these photos.

Just look at my fat and chubby cheeks.

I am not starving myself. For start I have such a high metabolism that I can eat a great deal and if I do any movement at all, I will burn off the fat so easily. I burn calories just by trying to keep myself warm. You can actually feel heat coming from me if you stand next to me (from my tummy area) and I make heat all year round. The only difference is that I am learning to say no when I feel full and try not to feel so guilty. When I go out and eat with my boyfriend or other people, rather than stuffing myself because I don’t want to waste food (money), I told myself that it is okay to put down the fork and the knife when I have eaten enough. Skipping dessert is a good way to cut down calories as well. I also started to drink more water like I used to and no longer eat sticky rice.

As of yesterday I told myself to not drink cappuccino on a regular basis anymore because I put sugar and cream in my coffee. I don’t take sugar in my tea so that is a good thing. I will also say no to a glass of wine when I go out and eat and also at gatherings, like the up and coming Christmas Dinner with my boyfriend’s family. I read somewhere that alcohol will dry your skin. Then again the French live longer because they drink a glass of wine everyday. Hmm…maybe I shouldn’t quit cold turkey, lol.

When I was home my friend noticed that I lost a couple of kg and said she is trying to lose some weight as well. I found it strange that after losing 5 kg, none of my boyfriend’s family members noticed the smaller me last week. They haven’t seen me since Augsut and while I was attending a birthday party, they all noticed my hair cut but not my weight loss. Perhaps they were too preoccupied with themselves to notice such a small thing. Having said that, I can still remember their comment about me gaining a couple of kg, not too long ago.

It’s time to polish my resume and do a serious job hunting again. I saw a few posters by an employment agency for internationals at various train stations and thought about sending in my resume. I need a decent job that will pay more than what I do right now. New year will bring more bills with new health insurance and transportation cost going up. Let’s hope I find a new job in a couple of months or else I will have to pack up and go back to the US. I should have been done with my study by now. There is no excuse.

The good news is that I still have both my arms and legs and some brain so the rest is up to me. I survived undergrad school before and it was tougher then having to work crappy jobs to get by. Now I am in a better position. If only I can speak Dutch as well as English. I would be more valuable. Better start hitting the books again.

Don’t try this at home boys and girls.

Don’t try this either. These guys know what they are doing!

If you really want to try, then go learn how to do this stunt with the pro.