...Laos (Shakes and Steaks)

The Mekong gushing past our hut on Don Det, Four Thousand Islands

My word, I can't remember eating so healthily on this trip. We have lost our borek and kebab-induced layers that kept us warm during the cold days and have emerged as toned, bronzed and glossy beauties. Kind of.  

But Lao food is seriously doing us some good. Thanks mainly to the cheap and wonderful fruit shakes available everywhere (this is after all backpacker-central). The fruit is so abundant and amazing here and when whizzed up with ice it's better than chocolate. Having a long lunch on mattresses laid out on a bamboo platform over the river, we sipped fresh, fluffy coconut shakes.

A coconut shake by the river

Rambutan, looks a bit 'spacey', tastes like a lychee

In hammocks outside our bamboo hut, we downed a combination of watermelon, papaya, mango and banana. Our German 'neighbours', who share our addiction, worked out they had so far spent 200 euros on the blessed things. And they're only halfway through their trip. 

At least one meal a day involves a bowl of foe - rice noodles in a broth with a little meat. You receive a basket of herbs including Thai basil and fresh mint and pile it in. On the table you have a variety of bottles of different sauces . Pungent fish sauce, fluorescent chilli sauce, dark soy sauce all vie for your attention. We've learnt the best way to do it is to add a little of everything and then keep adding as you go along. 

Foe

Dinner usually involves lightly fried meat and/or vegetables in a sauce with small cylindrical baskets of sticky rice. You mould the rice into a ball and then dip it into your sauce. It is seriously filling stuff. 

Laos food does get a little monotonous and there are plenty of 'backpacker cafes' offering standard fare. We haven't succumbed as we know it will only end in disappointment. However, on a stop over in Vientiane (officially the most boring capital in the world), we came across the most French French-bistro you can imagine. We gorged on beautifully cooked, plump, rare steaks with roquefort sauce and mustard and quaffed a carafe of red wine. We may be backpacking but you'll be pleased to hear that in a tangle of drunk, white people in vests eating 'happy pizzas'*, we have not let our standards slip. 

* a pizza topped with marijuana