Nuts and Crackers

Walk around the streets of Louang Prabang for a few days and you begin to notice a lot more. For example - the doughnut lady and the grilled banana lady always on the corner of our street. The local children that come up and harass you to buy their jewellery each evening, I am beginning to recognise the same faces and the little tricks they employ to make a sale. I have noticed that there are particular woven baskets for rubbish outside each residence and that tuk-tuks aren't allowed to enter a residential street because they are too noisy. I have even begun to notice the local nutter.




Yes even Louang Prabang has one and he really is special. The first day we arrived he approached us shirtless and with open arms begging for money, he doesn't speak he just uses his hands to signal. The next day he approached us in a flimsy sarong, again shirtless. (The people of Louang Prabang are conservative dressers so this is really inappropriate in Laos culture) The third day he approached us dressed in bright orange monk robes. The fourth day he had a spade a sickle and a piece of wood. Today I saw him walking down the street in full army gear, with a gun in each hand, fakes I hope but I didn't want to stick around to find out, so I veered off the main road and cycled down a small street and came across some crackers of a different kind.







There were at least a dozen mesh wire racks propped on the side of the street with wafer thin crackers lying flat, left to sun-dry. Since it was a scorching hot day, the conditions for sun-drying were perfect, outside their house a family begins the process of preparing some more crackers for drying. We stopped to chat and found that they are home-made with potato, sugar and black sesame seeds.





The process of making the wafers started with an old lady that looked like grandma, she took a small lump from an enormous pile of potato dough, rolled it into a small ball and then passed it to the next person. The next man had a small black wooden press and some rounds of plastic, each ball would be placed between two sheets of film and then pressed between the wood to squash the ball flat into round discs. The disc would then be passed along a few more times to be pressed and flattened some more until paper thin. These paper thin discs would then be placed onto the mesh racks for sun-drying.





Later we found some in the shop at the end of the street for sale, and we bought some to taste. Crispy and sweet with a slight sesame flavour. I found they were satisfyingly crunchy, and great to know that they were locally made and I was helping to support a family business.