Mountain Mouse and other delicacies…

After three nights of spray painted dogs and Lao-Lao whiskey we left the Vang Vieng party behind and headed for the tranquility of Luang Prabang – a UNESCO World Heritage town on the Mekong River, famous for its gleaming temples, French colonial architecture and exceptional Laos cuisine.

Five hours into the nine-hour coach journey, we pulled over for lunch at a roadside restaurant. A small crowd had gathered around a tasty smelling BBQ, presumably to put in orders for whatever was cooking on the grill – which turned out to be two large, semi-bald rats. The ‘chef’, in between prodding at them with a stick and furiously tearing the fur off a third specimen, insisted they weren’t rats at all but ‘Mountain Mice’.

After persuading El we definitely didn’t want a take away (who in their right mind would eat a rodent?) we boarded the bus with a tube of Pringles and some peanut M&Ms, now slightly nervous about what culinary delights awaited us at our destination.

We needn’t have worried. Luang Prabang was stunning and made all the more wonderful by the huge variety of delicious food offer. On our first night, we dug into an all-you-can-eat ‘steamboat’ – a bucket of hot coals was placed beneath our table and we cooked our own meat and noodles on a domed metal grill with a moat a the bottom filled with hot broth…all for the princely sum of £3. It set the tone for the next ten days of eating.

Our afternoons were spent sampling the local delicacies (plus occasional Western dishes) and everything we tried was outstanding. Fresh summer rolls, Mekong fish curry, sticky rice, Luang Prabang spicy sausage, beef Laab and papaya salad. In the evenings, we joined the heaving throng at the nightmarket, a corridor of noise and smoke and spice where, for a couple of pounds, you could help yourself to huge buffet of vegetable dishes and pick out a meat stick to grill (no Mountain Mouse here) just fresh fish, chicken and tender beef…delicious.