What we loved about Laos was the sheer abundance of vegetarian food of various types, including French, Laotian and western. We loved the watercress soup that most restaurants offered, while French cuisine is also quite awesome. We had crepes many times, as well as French bread including croissants and baguettes.

Our favourite cafe was the Ban Wat Sene in LP, which we haunted quite regularly to write our postcards while sipping tall iced drinks, with Norah Jones completing the picture with her crooning melodies in the background. What more can anyone ask for relaxation? For a luxurious experience, we recommend the upmarket L'Elephant which was right behind Villa Sante, which became our favourite evening restaurant.

Of course, again, unlike typical hotels, Villa Santi's own restaurant is also a pretty good dining experience, especially at nights. Lanterns made up of locally available handmade paper dot the restaurant and the road outside the villa, beckoning invitingly to passers by to enter. The restaurant balcony serves as a good vantagepoint to feel the cool breeze and watch the scenes on the Sakkarine road below. And of course, the food is great: reportedly, the chef is the daughter of the chef of the erstwhile royal family.

In Vientiane, we ate at the "Just For Fun" restaurant. The uniqueness of this place was that it primarily offered vegetarian food but said at various places on the menu that it could substitute tofu with chicken or fish for its "non-vegetarian friends" - a surprising concept for Asia which typically treats vegetarianism as something special!

June 22, 2004