Andrew Lee

July 25, 2015

Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is an interesting place to visit because unlike most traditional cities in the U.S., you have a pretty lengthy drive on the highway to get from area to area. No quick hop on the metro or nice walk along the river in this city.

So on my past trip to L.A., I extended my visit a bit to stay with some friends in the area of Silver Lake. Most tourists probably wouldn’t come to see Silver Lake usually; its much more of a residential area for the more alternative crowd. However if you do happen upon this area, there is a bit to offer, most of which is on Sunset Blvd.

A couple places for brunch

Millie’s Cafe

Probably my favorite of the two brunch places I went to, Millie’s has a really, really extensive menu. With a lot of outdoor sidewalk seating, this little cafe is a good place to have some good ol’ comfort food while watching the numerous, sunglasses wearing locals stroll on by. I had the healthy green burrito (very Southern Californian of me right?) that was made of egg whites, guacamole and spinach and comes with a side of fresh fruit. It was enormous, and actually quite delicious for the “healthy” option. I’d recommend it, however if you do need the grease and goodness of bacon, sausage, french toast, pancakes etc., don’t worry, they have all that too. I’ll probably go back and have that when I’m not on a health kick.

Local

For a quieter alternative down the street, give Local a try. The ambiance is a bit calmer, and their menu is not as extensive. That being said, for a lazy Sunday type place, Local fits the billing. There isn’t really any sidewalk seating, but their covered patio is large.

Drinks

Thirsty Crow

Silver Lake, from what I saw, doesn’t seem to be a “going out” type of area, but there are a few places to grab drinks and have a good time. The Thirsty Crow in particular is quite good. It’s a very divey, dark place with a speakeasy, candlelit vibe. Despite its darkness, the place is actually quite vibrant with some great Motown music playing the night I was there. Outside a chef grills up hamburgers to order while listening to Michael Jackson. And if you like whisky, THIS is your place. The whisky list is extensive and you should be able to find one to your liking.

Things to do

Griffith Observatory

Not far from Silver Lake is the Griffith Observatory (as seen in numerous movies including Rebel Without a Cause and The Terminator). Located at the top of a steep mountain, those of you looking to break a little sweat on your trip should try hiking to the top. You should be in relatively good shape if you want to try the hike, and be sure to bring water, hats, sunscreen, etc. because there is practically no shade on the trail. I’d say the hike was very similar to hiking up Masada. When you get to the top, you can enjoy the exhibits inside the Observatory and there’s a $7 planetarium show that is the perfect recipe for the post-climb collapse.

July 23, 2015

Video: Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco

Hi people! Just wanted to let you know that a few California posts are on the way. In the meantime, enjoy watching the fishermen in San Francisco feed their buddies, the sea lions.

June 18, 2015June 18, 2015

New Orleans: Quick Hits – Activities

Obviously on a work trip I spent most of the days in a conference room. However, there was still time to explore some of New Orleans and here are a few of the activities that we partook in.

Swamp Tours: Cajun Encounters vs. Airboat Adventures

A swamp tour to see the alligators of the bayou is pretty much a must-do if you’re in New Orleans. There are several different tour groups, and I’m here to compare two of them for you. I would recommend both, but there are differences in the experiences depending on which group you go with. Both options are about 30-45 minute bus rides away from the French Quarter, and for the options that I took the pricing was around $75 on average.

We’ll begin with Airboat Adventures. For the thrill-seeking, roller coaster loving types, Airboat Adventures offers a high-octane zip through the swamp. The unique parts of Airboat Adventures?

Obviously racing through the swamp on a tin barge with a giant propeller fan furiously working behind you.
Our crazy-ass driver actually jumped into the water with the alligators and fed them while swimming amongst the animals.
A baby gator is passed around the boat for some pretty awesome selfies.

One thing to note: if you don’t like loud noise, this may not be for you. They give you solid headphones to wear, but it’s still pretty loud regardless.

Cajun Encounters is a bit more of a mellow trip through the swamp. I would recommend paying the $70 because although there are cheaper options, the $70 gets you a ride on a smaller boat fitting 10 people that can go into the smaller canals and river ways. The unique parts of Cajun Encounters?

You do probably see more alligators on Cajun Encounters than you would on Airboat Adventures.
As I mentioned, going through the small canals of the swamp offers some fantastic photo opportunities.
You do get to see wild boars (see video below). These animals come right up to the boats for food and are absolutely adorable/enormous. We just happened to luckily enough (or unlucky to some of the other passengers) almost witness an alligator attack a baby wild boar. The boat captains intervened and used the boats to shoo away the predatory alligators, but the commotion did get a lot of hearts racing.

You can’t go wrong either way, you just need to decide for yourself what kind of adventure you’d like.

New Orleans School of Cooking

This was one of the highlights of the trip. Our department head graciously booked us all for a hands-on cooking class as a team builder activity and it was a hell of a lot of fun. Beer and wine were included, so the libations made it quite an event. Our chef instructor was young, enthusiastic, and had a contagious passion for cooking southern food. We were split up into four groups, each group being in charge of one of the menu items (you can change the menu depending on your dietary restrictions): Gumbo, Stuffed Mushrooms, Jambalaya, and Bananas Foster. Obviously being such a big group, not everyone got to do everything, but I would suspect if you visit, you’ll be more hands-on in making each part of the menu. I was part of the Gumbo team, and specifically helped out in making the roux for the soup. I had never made gumbo before, let alone roux, so it was a great learning experience. After the cooking, we all sat and feasted on our creations, and although the food wasn’t super-duper restaurant quality, we loved it because we made it.

The Garden District

An easy cab or trolley ride away from the French Quarter, this is the area to go to if you want to see some ridiculously nice mansions. The area between Magazine Street and St. Charles Ave holds some of the most impressive houses in such a small area that I’ve ever seen. Guided tours are available, though just walking around and admiring the architecture was enough for me. Magazine Street offers some cool little boutique shops and restaurants to meander in and out of as well. Also located in the Garden District is the Lafayette Cemetery that’s worth strolling into for half an hour to see the traditional tombs and wall vaults made famous in movies and popular culture. Across from Lafayette Cemetery is the famous Commander’s Palace restaurant, which we didn’t actually eat at, but heard from others in our group that it’s excellent.

New Orleans Ghost Tour

Don’t do this drunk. I’m serious. Not because it’s too scary or anything like that. It’s just that this walking ghost tour doesn’t mix well with inebriated people. Our tour guide Jack was having an awfully hard time keeping people’s attention and he clearly was getting frustrated by it. His stories were good, but they were far too long and complicated for a group that had clearly had a few drinks in them. And you don’t get to go into any of the buildings he was talking about. I’m not saying I wouldn’t recommend it, but do it earlier in the night and/or on the night off from the bars.

Frenchman Art Market

Located in the heart of the Frenchman Street area, this outdoor market is a great place to find some creative, local art for sale. Most of the crafts range from jewelry to furniture, and clothing to paintings and have an unsurprisingly hipster look to them. Nonetheless, it’s a cool place to take a stroll and pick up a souvenir or two.

June 12, 2015

New Orleans: Quick Hits – Food

I’ve just recently returned from a work trip to New Orleans, LA and needless to say it was quite a week. New Orleans is everything you’d expect from the Mardi Gras capital of the world. With the open alcohol beverage laws in the city, New Orleans can easily cause a few rough mornings. Bourbon Street in particular is as wild as its reputation and I’ll say this right off the bat: It’s not for everyone. Bourbon Street on a weekend night is probably as filthy drunk of an area that I’ve ever seen – it’s neither a compliment nor an insult; it’s the truth. Unless you’re in you’re early-twenties with a fondness for frozen drinks that are really sweet and loaded with the shittiest alcohol, I doubt that you’ll want to spend too much time there. But I do recommend you walk down it at least once to experience the chaos (and the smell you’ll quickly want to forget).

Since this was a work trip, most everything was taken care of by the company, so I can’t give you too many specifics on pricing. But I’ll give you my quick thoughts on a several restaurants and activities in the next few posts. We’ll start with food in this post.

Cafe Du Monde

The signature cafe of New Orleans, this eatery is open 24 hours a day and tourists and locals flock there for their coffee and signature beignets. For me personally, I think it’s “eh”. You kind of HAVE to go there because it’s such a historical place. But at the end of the day to me it was just a too doughy fried dough and coffee. It’s not bad, it’s just not worth the hype. It also doesnt’t help that it’s usually muggy and hot in New Orleans, which isn’t exactly the climate conducive to me wanting to eat a hot donut and coffee.

Cafe Amelie

This is a weird review because we didn’t eat there. Why didn’t we eat there? Because it was closed when we arrived. Why did we go when it was closed? Oh, it’s because we had a confirmed reservation. So yeah, we were a little shocked/pissed/amused/confused when we saw the place empty and a sign saying that it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. A useful bit of knowledge that they probably could have told us when we made the reservation AND when we called again to confirm we were good to go. The patio from outside the gates looked nice though.

Three Muses

Probably my favorite of all the places we ate, Three Muses is located on Frenchman Street just east of the French Quarter. I would highly recommend going out there if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Bourbon Street. Frenchman Street is still pretty crazy, but it’s a bit more of an older crowd (late-20s, early-30’s) with more venues that lean toward hipster with live jazz music than fratty dance party. On a weekend night, it’s best to make a reservation at Three Muses (and at any Frenchman Street restaurant in fact) because the place is not very large. Our group of 6 just happened to be lucky enough to show up when another party of 6 who had a reservation was late. The hostess ended up seating us because the other group wasn’t on time (they’ll give you a 15-minute grace period). When we were there, a female jazz singer and her trio of instrumentalists were performing music that sounded like it was out of the Roaring 20s; it was a fun, lively atmosphere. The food comes in small sharing portions so it’s best to get a few. My personal recommendations are the Mac and Cheese, Bulgogi, and Tempura Shrimp. My co-worker also said the lamb sliders that I never got around to tasting were excellent. As far as their cocktails, you should have a cool, refreshing “Earl Grey Gardens” with dinner and a “The Other Redhead” as an after-dinner libation.

Oceana

Works as a good lunch place on Bourbon Street to get a real good shrimp po’ boy or seafood dish. It felt kind of like a chain, though it wasn’t, so don’t expect anything here to blow you away. Keep it as a lunch option and not dinner because it’s solid, not spectacular. The french fries there randomly were really good though.

Domenica Restaurant

Domenica was the restaurant our work group went to for our first dinner and I very much enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say you should put this at the top of your least or even to make it a target to rush to, but if you do end up there I think you’ll enjoy it as well. I had the Tagliatelle made up of slow cooked rabbit & porcini mushroom ragu (much to the chagrin of my co-worker who couldn’t stop picturing me eating a bunny) and it was delicious. The Salumi & Formaggi platter they put together for us was spot on and I sampled the Red Snapper which was a popular choice amongst my co-workers. The surprise favorite dish though was the Roasted Cauliflower w/ seas salt and whipped feta. Definitely get that as an appetizer.

Evangeline

If you had asked me two years ago, I would have said Evangeline was a must-do. But after going there this second time around, I would say not a must-do, but a recommend. I want to say that the restaurant was having a bit of an off day, but that’s still not an excuse. Anyone who ordered beer got beer that was pretty warm (not very welcome in the heat of summer), and our waitress while very nice, seemed a bit stoned. At one point, my co-worker asked simply for yellow mustard and the waitress returned empty handed apologetically saying “We’ve run out”. What restaurant runs out of yellow mustard?? The food was fine though, and the patio is really nice with the Christmas tree lights strung up.

The patio is nice, but if it's really muggy, stick with the A/C inside. — The patio is nice, but if it’s really muggy, stick with the A/C inside.

The Ruby Slipper Cafe

We came here for brunch, and I’ll say off the bat that they did not leave a good first impression. I was running late, so I didn’t see it, but apparently my friends who put our name down on the wait list were treated pretty rudely. That being said, we still stayed and personally, I’m kinda glad we did despite the bitchiness people encountered. I tried their Eggs Cochon, which is their signature dish, and it was awesome. I’m not sure why I was skeptical of a dish that had pulled pork, poached eggs, and hollandaise and cheese over a buttermilk biscuit, but it was really good.

May 15, 2015June 14, 2015

Cambodia Quad Bike Tour and the Floating Village

My last post about our SE Asia trip will conclude with a couple other activities that we did – one which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend as a must-do, and the other as a very much must-do.

We’ll get the Floating Village out of the way first. I was underwhelmed by it. This isn’t to say that the attraction wasn’t interesting. It was just a bit too far out and a bit too expensive to waste time on if you’re on a time budget. The Floating Village is about 30-45 minutes drive from Angkor Wat. From there you pay $20 to hop into a boat and take another 30 minute boat ride down a river to the lake where floating houses reside. Remember, the $20 fee is in American money, so in relation to everything else, it’s really expensive.

It was a nice day, so the boat ride wasn’t too bad. But at the end of the day, all you really saw were a lot of poverty-stricken shacks. In that sense, it’s good to see in that it reminds one of how much the rest of the world actually lives, and how we should be grateful for everything that we have. And seeing this community living literally on the water (floating schools, stores, etc.) was very unique and something that I hadn’t ever seen anywhere else before. But at the end of the day, I’d probably skip it for more time at Angkor Wat or other activities.

What was cool? The Cambodia Quad Bike tour we took. Now this is an activity worth doing. The $35 we spent on taking the ATV tour in my opinion was the highlight of Cambodia. This isn’t a knock on Angkor Wat by any means, but when I travel I do like to get my heart racing a bit and get the adrenaline going; this tour was the fix. If you do sign up for the tour, sign up for the sunset ride.

The ATV tour takes you out to the countryside where you can ride through the rice fields past water buffaloes, beautiful landscapes, and Cambodian farmers at speeds up to I would say 40-50 mph. Our guide, Heng, was great as well, stopping at various points to let us take photos and take photos of us. But the best part of the tour was the sunset. We stopped at a rice field with practically no one else around. In front of us a family of about 50 ducks marched along without a care, and a water buffalo chilled beside us. The sunset itself was incredible, so serene and vibrant with color. Whereas the Angkor Wat sunrise was amazing to see because it was both iconic and awe-inspiring, the sunset we saw in the rice fields was spectacular because of the zen-like calmness it brought. I can’t imagine a better way to have wrapped up what was such a whirlwind trip.

May 12, 2015

Angkor Wat

The main attraction of any trip to Cambodia is undoubtedly a trip to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples of Angkor. The impressive temples are not only profound because of the sheer size of how many temples are in the area, but because the detail on them is still remarkably intact. The temples span across miles and miles and it no joke takes several days to see all of them if you’re so inclined. Because of the popularity of the attraction, I highly recommend getting a personal guide and I would very highly recommend having your hotel reserve you one in advance. We made the mistake of not planning ahead, so when we arrived in Cambodia, our hotel said that most of the guides were already booked, so we had to scramble to find someone for the next morning. We did get a guide eventually, so all’s well that ends well, but don’t go through the stress we went through. Book in advance.

I’m going to again let the pictures do the talking for this blog post, but I will mention a few tips/highlights:

A 3-Day pass is $40. You’ll need to have it on you at all times to get in and around Angkor Wat.
It is an extraordinarily hot place, especially during the summer. Bring a ton of water.
The early sunrise is worth seeing, but I don’t think the arrival time of 5 am is necessary. You could probably leave a little later and still catch the best part of the sunrise over the temple. For a good picture, take a spot at the edge of the pond in front of the temple so that you can see the reflection in the water. It’s not a secret, so you’ll see plenty of people around that area.
Obviously Angkor Wat is huge, so there’s too much to get into in this one blog post, but my favorite parts were
- the magnificently preserved Monkey vs. Demon carvings on the main Angkor Wat temple;
- the tree wrapped temples at Ta Prohm with their giant roots where they filmed Tomb Raider (something they were proud to point out incessantly);
- the Banteay Srei aka “Pink Temple, which was like a mini Angkor Wat made of pink stone with easily the most detailed carvings of all the temples that had been preserved; and
- the 49 columns with Buddha/the King’s face at Angkor Thom.
One last note: There are so many temples aside from the main Angkor Wat temple that aren’t as highly regarded or populated with tourists. At those temples, be on the lookout for wildlife. Even though the temples are marked off as tourist attractions, they’re still in the jungles of Cambodia. As a case in point, when we went to Beng Malea, as I was taking a picture, my buddy and tour guide abruptly told me to get the hell out of the way fast. I had no idea what they were talking about until I looked up and saw a giant green snake on the branch above me. I promptly shit my pants and stepped away. The guide told us that type of snake was actually quite poisonous and he used a branch to try and get it to slither back up the tree to at the very least give it some distance from the path. Quite a scary moment indeed and one that should be a reminder to be vigilant.

April 30, 2015

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Going back to a more industrialized, urban country was a bit jarring coming from the serenity of Laos. After our exhausting delay, and relatively frightening flight, we landed in Cambodia for the final leg of our trip. Again, when you get to Cambodia, you’ll need to have cash on hand for the $35 visa.

Our hotel was The Golden Temple Hotel, which arranged for a tuk tuk to pick us up and bring us there. The Golden Temple Hotel’s staff welcomed us with tea and a snack when we arrived. The folks there are incredibly helpful and accommodating. The place itself is brand new, and only has 30 rooms so the staff does their best to get to know their individual guests. The rooms are equipped with all the amenities to make a comfortable stay (HD TV, free WiFi, A/C, nice clean and new furniture). The hotel also provides a cell phone for you to use (which is HUGE for those of you without an international plan), a free wine happy hour, a very generous complimentary breakfast every morning with a box breakfast for those who leave early for Angkor Wat, and when you leave they give their departing guests a free T-shirt and scarf as a thank you gift. The deal we got through Expedia also included for each of us a free massage at the hotel spa and a free Khmer dinner cooked and delivered to your room. What did we pay? $80 a night.

So, yeah, that hotel might be the best value I’ve ever gotten at a place I’ve stayed traveling. There’s only two things that they could improve on. One, they need a few more lounge chairs by the pool. And two, while the staff was great (and I really want to make sure that’s clear, they were GREAT), they were a bit overbearing in their attempts to accommodate every need. While I do feel kind of like a dick for saying that a negative is that people were too nice, I do wish they scaled it back just a notch.

The location of the Golden Temple Hotel is also a huge plus. It’s within walking distance of the Siem Reap Night Market as well as Pub Alley. My first impression of these places was this: I hope that Luang Prabang doesn’t turn into it. The Night Market in Siem Reap is the exact opposite of what was in Luang Prabang. It was loud and seedy, with tuk tuk drivers and whores coming up to you constantly. I almost punched a guy in the face because he grabbed by arm and spun me around so that he could get my attention. Despite that, knowing that it is what it is, it is a rather fun place to go out if you’re looking to have drinks and a crowd. Pub Alley is essentially trying to be the Bourbon Street of SE Asia, so there are plenty of different types of bars with large quantities of cheap drinks to be had. Most of the bars have outdoor seating for people watching. Our experience was even cooler because there was a power outage (not uncommon for SE Asia apparently), so half the street had no electricity and people were using candles for lighting giving the street a really cool, rustic, exotic look.

One place in particular that I’d recommend for drinks is Beer Battle, which has a bit of a calmer vibe surrounded by all the madness. I would also recommend walking to the Night Market from there and grabbing dinner at Genevieve’s Restaurant. This restaurant was the closest thing to a Mom & Pop place we went to all trip. We honestly weren’t expecting much, but it ended up being a surprisingly good meal. The owner is an Australian who opened up the place, named after his wife, and sends a portion of his proceeds to charity. The staff he hires are all local Cambodians whom he hopes will one day take over the restaurant and make it their own. He came by our table at one point, and it was had not to feel good about eating there after speaking with the kind, grandfatherly figure. One thing to note – if you ask for spicy, they will give you spicy. My buddy on the trip is Indian, and he had been noticing that there wasn’t any really spicy food so far on the trip, so he specifically asked our waitress to make our beef salad spicy, spicy. I lasted one bite; literally one bite. He on the other hand impressively finished the dish, but at the cost of practically not being able to eat the next day!

Coming up: The signature attraction of Cambodia — Angkor Wat.

April 20, 2015

Morning Alms Ceremony and the Royal Palace

Our last day in Luang Prabang was a short one since we were supposed to fly out for Cambodia in the afternoon (more on that later). So we got ourselves up early in order to catch the morning tak bat alms ceremony in the center of town. This ceremony is performed every morning at sunrise by the monks at the center of town. I don’t know the actual count, but I’d say around 100 monks, dressed in their bright orange robes, ages ranging from young boys to grandpas, walk in a single file line down the street accepting sticky rice from worshipers. This rice is not eaten by the monks, but offered to the Buddha when they return to the wat. It’s a unique experience to see and one worth waking up before sunrise for. If you do go to observe, don’t be a douche; respect the locals worshiping. It’s poor taste to get in the way of the procession to take flash photos, and in my opinion if you’re not going to actually participate you should keep back a bit.

After the tak bat alms ceremony, we walked over to the Royal Palace Museum which is located where the Night Market is held. The Royal Palace cost 30K kip to enter and houses an impressive display of royal thrones, garments, Buddhas, and swords. Outside the palace, you can see the 83 cm-tall gold-alloy Buddha statue, which supposedly is what the city is named after. Sadly, no photos are allowed once you get into the palace, so I’ll just need to describe to you some of the highlights.

The interior architecture is made up of a lavish Japanese glass mosaic that is truly impressive. The bedrooms, throne halls, and reception rooms are all view-able throughout the palace. Be sure to look at the paintings of the story of Prince Wetsantara as you walk down the hallways; its actually a very interesting fable and the story is broken up into a dozen paintings or so. Also, one thing to check out is the reception room with all the gifts from other countries to the king. Most countries gave a precious artifact or something that represented their country (for instance jade bowls, swords, jewelry, things of that nature). Then you get to the US display. What did they give Laos? A shitty model of the lunar module that looked like a 12-year-old put together. Now, that’s what we thought when we first saw it – my buddy and I were laughing in the museum about it. It wasn’t until we looked it up after that we found out that the model itself wasn’t the gift. Unlabeled was an actual piece of moon rock that was offered as a gift. Well done US.

After that, we made our way back to Le Bel Air to check out and headed to the airport. On a trip as ambitious as ours, we would have been really lucky if we didn’t hit any travel snags, and in general we didn’t. But inevitably, if you do do a trip like ours, something will come up and in our case it was a 6-hour delay at the Luang Prabang airport. Annoyingly, our Vietnam Airlines flight was delayed due to mechanical issues coming out of Hanoi so we were stuck in the airport for half the day. If we had known it was as delayed as it was, we would have just stayed in Luang Prabang for the afternoon. But instead we were bored out of our minds in the tiny Luang Prabang airport and missed some valuable sightseeing time in Cambodia. Vietnam Airlines did try to accommodate the passengers by providing food, but the “hamburger” they gave us was…well…pretty gross. We did eventually make it to Siem Riep, Cambodia, although late at night, for the final leg of our journey.

April 15, 2015

River cruise to Pak Ou/Whiskey Village and Tamarind – the best meal in Laos

After our long day riding elephants and swimming in waterfalls, the last thing I wanted to deal with was the sound of banging drums at 4:30 am. I failed to mention this earlier about Le Bel Air, but its proximity is close enough to a wat that you’ll be able to hear the beating of drums early in the morning. It’s not obnoxiously loud, but if you’re a light sleeper bring your earplugs.

Our plan for the day was to take a relaxing river cruise down the Mehkong River to the Pak Ou caves and Whiskey Village. We booked the cruise through the hotel, and for $35 (US) the cruise takes you to those two locations and includes lunch. Our boat was the Nava Mekong. It’s a little higher end than the cheaper cruises in that the boat was bigger and had table settings for meals. The cheaper cruises were more like the traditional Lao long boats, but covered.

For obvious reasons, only do a river cruise if the weather is nice out. I say this because the cruise itself was probably the best part of the tour since the two destinations weren’t exactly that amazing. The Whiskey Village, which we had high hopes for, turned out to be nothing more than a few shacks with women selling bottles of whiskey. Don’t get me wrong, seeing the jars of whiskey with giant scorpions and snakes was awesome, but we were hoping that there was a factory or something. Instead, all the Whiskey Village was was a very poor moonshine outpost. That being said, since we were there we did try some whiskey. It tasted like very strong Saki, not bad but nothing to write home about. We did purchase a few bottles however because they do make great display souvenirs.

From there the cruise headed to the Pak Ou caves, which was the cooler of the two stops. The caves are split into an upper and lower cave and house several hundred mini Buddha statues. The upper cave is a bit of a stair climb to get to and don’t forget to bring a flashlight (our iPhone flashlights worked perfectly well) because the upper cave is pitch black inside. It definitely made the spectacle of seeing all the Buddhas a bit more exciting and mysterious.

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On the cruise back, the Nava Mekong offers a pretty delightful lunch made up of samples of Laotian cuisine and then you’re back in Luang Prabang by around 2. We headed for a quick spa session at Hibiscus Spa, which provided a really good massage, but I wouldn’t recommend going there if you’re looking for friendly employees. These people were polite and all, but definitely seemed exhausted and looked like they didn’t want to be there. After that, we went to our favorite dinner experience of the whole trip.

Tamarind is one of the top restaurants to try in Luang Prabang. They offer a cooking class that is recommended in several guidebooks and in hindsight we probably should have taken the class instead of going on the river cruise. Regardless, we went there for dinner and it could arguably be the best meal we had the entire trip. The employees and Tamarind obviously have a genuine interest in showing their patrons what real Laotian food is like. The menu is very in depth; it’s part history lesson on Laos food, part FAQ on best practices for cooking and eating Laos food, and part course offerings. What impressed us was the fact that although we took a good 20 minutes reading the history/FAQ in the menu, the wait staff didn’t disturb us the whole time. It was only when we clearly had finished reading that our waitress politely came by and asked us if we had any questions.

The food at Tamarind is authentic and excellent. The tasters appetizer is like a Laos charcuterie with an assortment of sausages, veggies, sauces, spices, and other meats and is a must try. The Buffalo Laap was also a highlight and that is a ground buffalo meat dish with Laos spices and tripe (apparently Laos style includes tripe). The coolest part of the meal is how you eat all the dishes using the sticky rice. Essentially what you do it take the sticky rice, roll it into a small patty with your hands, and use its stickiness to scoop up all the food. It’s kind of like how you eat Ethiopian food with you hands, but instead of injera the Laotians use the sticky rice. For desert, the Watermelon Chili sorbet is awesome; it’s cool and refreshing with a tiny bit of kick at the end as you swallow. And the whole experience was cheap; it only cost $40 for two people. A definite must-try meal in Luang Prabang, and I plan on returning sometime in the future for the cooking class they offer.

April 12, 2015

Kuang Si Falls

After our outing with the elephants, we made our way to what is on pretty much every Top 5 of Laos list — Kuang Si Falls. Because we had already pre-arranged this at the hotel, our driver picked us up from the Elephant Village and drove us the 30-45 minutes to the falls. If you take the excursion out there on your own, I would highly recommend getting a driver with an actual car as opposed to hiring a Tuk Tuk. The road there is dusty, bumpy, and windy and would be very uncomfortable on the back of the rickshaw.

The entrance fee for the falls is 20K kip. Be sure to bring a bathing suit and towel because even if you don’t think you’ll want to go in the water, you will once you see it. The Kuang Si Falls are a beautiful emerald-jade color with hundreds of butterflies that flutter all around; it truly lives up to the hype. The first watering hole you approach at the falls is by far the biggest and busiest. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is the only watering hole out of the excitement of seeing it first. Keep walking up and you’ll see that there are about 7 or 8 watering holes and they get progressively less and less busy as you keeping walking up the hill (that being said, the first watering hole does have a tree that you can jump off of into the water).

As you make it up the hill, you’ll eventually reach the apex of the falls which is a giant 200 ft. waterfall. At the bottom, you can take some great pictures and there is a trail that will take you to the top. Now when we tried to hike up this, we were both wearing flip flops, making it nearly impossible. So if you want to hike up to the top, be sure to wear shoes. Also, the climb is incredibly steep, like on your hands and knees steep. It is not for anyone who isn’t in peak physical shape. As we were struggling to get to the top, we asked the folks coming down if it was worth the effort. Most, if not all, said “No”. The general consensus was that the view wasn’t really that good at the top and you may as well just take more pictures from the bottom. So it’s up to you whether you think the climb is worth it.

We eventually settled on a water hole 2/3 of the way up from the bottom of the trail and hung out there for a good couple of hours. The water is a little chilly, but you do get used to it after a while and the refreshing coolness and cleanness of the water is a welcome escape from the hot mugginess of Southeast Asia.