Jan. 19: Luang Prabang. I am absolutely charmed by this vibrant, colorful town of 60, 000 along the Mekong River. It really is Shangri-La, with French Colonial hotels facing the river and pastoral scenes of bamboo bridges, fisherman’s boats, and mist-covered mountains. I have never seen so many shades of green. Any claim we as Americans have to our superior lifestyle shrivels and dies in a place like this. For one thing, the food here is some of the best I have ever eaten: fresher, more delicately seasoned than anything I eat at home. For another, the people are soft-spoken, kind, and gentle.

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Today, our guide took us to an incredible set of waterfalls carved out of limestone, which turns the water a beautiful turquoise. Our picnic lunch was a veritable United Nations feast, from the dried fish and chilis our guides Vong and Pan brought, to the varieties of milk products from the water buffalo farm: feta, yogurt, babaghanoush, blue cheese, buffalo mozzarella, together with French ham, mushroom, and pickle baguettes and the freshest salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, croutons, watercress and lettuce.

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The Buffalo farm deserves its own paragraph. It is the brainchild – and ambitious social enterprise – of an Australian couple who realized on a visit to Sri Lanka that water buffalo could be used for milk (not just plowing fields and meat). Water buffalo udders are shorter than cows’, so milking is a lot harder. Once you decide to put in the effort, you get 2-3 liters of buffalo milk a day, compared to 40-80 liters for a milk cow. To improve this, they are crossbreeding Swamp buffalo with Mira buffalo, which produce 10-15 liters a day. All this work is happening in a culture that has no milk or dairy products! According to our guide, most Laos wouldn’t touch our picnic because they thought we were eating animal fat. They think that yogurt comes from fruit; they also don’t realize that you need a calf for yogurt, because that’s the only time a cow lactates. God love this couple, though. They’re trying out all kinds of products in their kitchen; apparently, the first camembert had to be used as fondue. I was sorry we didn’t get to meet them, because they are doing something no one else thought of doing. I also wanted to thank them for the feast they gave us for lunch. Dwight, our farm guide, is from Calgary and volunteering for 2-3 weeks through an organization called Work Away. In addition to being a good source of nutrition, with 8-9% more fat and tons of vitamins and minerals, the farmers who rent their buffalo to the farm get free vaccinations for the cows and training in better agricultural practices.

If you come to Luang Prabang, you will see small birds in bamboo cages for sale (they are caught on farms where they are pests and sold to tourists to release), eat yummy sticky rice stuffed into bamboo sticks and sealed with banana leaves, and wonder at the forests of teak, rosewood, and mahogany. You will walk clean streets, spend big (last night our dinner cost us 313,500 Kips, or about $30), and have your choice of apple pie, basil, or tamarind buffalo ice cream. For dinner, you will eat “larb,” a dish of minced beef and rice with spices, or perhaps, perch from the river steamed in a banana leaf with greens and basil, lemongrass and rice powder. You will rise at 6 a.m. to hand out sticky rice and cookies to monks – under trees, that are also wrapped in saffron sashes, because they are believed to be monks who stand tall and serene on city streets – absorb symphonic birdsong and touch the most exquisite silk cloths. These fabrics are dyed using a variety of natural plants like lemongrass, teak, and the sappa tree. To deepen the color, natural dyes are mixed with rusty nails and turned into intricate, brilliant patterns.

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You will stand quietly and admire the slight Hmong porters who climb the stairs from the river carrying several pieces of luggage or carry heavy loads of sticks on their backs from the mountains to the markets. You will smile every time you see a laughing Lao child. You will be mesmerized by the graceful dancing hands that morph into birds or the morning glory or gardenia. No wonder ancient explorers traveled great distances to amass the treasures of “the Orient.” Don and I walked at sunrise through the awakening town, picked up our stinky clothes – now smelling sweetly of lemongrass – at a local laundry, and ate mandarins that redefine “orange” for us. Now close your eyes and imagine the town at night. There’s a full moon peeking out from scudding clouds and lighting up the bowl of the sky. Elegant hotels beckon with trees full of white lanterns and lighted globes. The pleasures could not be deeper, nor more simple.