Next to all the food stalls, there were a variety of other items on sale, not unlike the selection you'd find in a supermarket: clothes, household items, toys, ... and this:
I'm not sure if I would have guessed what this was only from a visual impression. My sense of smell, however, immediately told me what was in the bags: tobacco! As long as people don't try to burn them, I love the smell of tobacco leaves.
Back in the cooking school, our teacher explained the procedure for the rest of the day: he would demonstrate how to make the dishes - two for lunch, and five for dinner - and we would then cook them independently, with him being available to help if necessary. This is the neat and clean interior of the school - just before we started laying waste to it ;-)
A little while later: success! The two lunch dishes didn't look quite as perfect as those that our teacher had cooked, but tasted excellent. On the left-hand side you can see Luang Prabang salad, and on the right-hand side a dish called Feu Khua, made of fried rice noodles, egg, chicken and vegetables.
After lunch, the cooking continued. Our teacher demonstrated five dishes for dinner, and after tasting them, we each chose three to cook ourselves. Since all five were absolutely delicious, I coordinated with the couple doing the class with me so that we would be able to share and eat all five dishes for dinner.
The dish that I liked best was one whose name is absolutely impossible to pronounce correctly: Kheu Muk Kheua Gup Moo - fried eggplant with pork and a yummy sauce whose main ingredient was oyster sauce. Since the others liked this dish best as well, this was the one dish we both cooked. The two versions are on the top left and right of the picture:
The other dishes were delicious as well, and most of them easy enough to cook at home. I'm looking forward to making some Lao food once I have a home again! Just in case you are wondering about the lack of staples in this picture: the bamboo basket at the bottom of the picture contains sticky rice. This is the standard way of serving sticky rice in Laos and everybody does it this way, from restaurants to people taking their basket with them to work. The people usually use their fingers to make little sticky rice balls and dip them into whatever sauce is available, such as the chili dip at the top of the picture.
The cooking and eating finished just in time for the sunset. During the last few days, I had wanted to climb the hill in the center of Luang Prabang to watch the sunset, but had always missed the right time. Today the timing was perfect, and I started the climb with plenty of time to get to the top. From a little way up, there was a nice view of the main street with the royal palace's temple in the background. Just like every night, the street was closed to traffic, and the sales ladies were just setting up their night market stalls:
On the top of Mount Phousi, I found that everybody else also seemed to think that a hill would be a good place to watch the sunset. The sunset wasn't all that spectacular, but watching the picture-taking crowd was quite funny.
