Traditional Market Tour and Private Laotian Cooking Class with a Local

Amazing experience! We often book cooking lessons when we travel as it's the best way to experience local culture.; especially the experience of going to a local's home. Husband and wife, Si and Nee, were so authentic, welcoming and informative. We cooked, chopped, boiled, and grilled in their wonderful, functional and clean outdoor home kitchen with mountains in the background. All was explained to us, including first walking through the market to buy our vegetables. Si speaks English very well, Nee is still learning, but she's a trained chef and had no problem helping and guiding us. We learned so much about food and culture and enjoyed many laughs. Our reward was to sit down, family style, in their outdoor dining area and eat our delicious meal. Their daughter and son joined us for awhile and it helped complete the picture of a Lao family cooking and eating together. Tuk-tuk transportation, included in the price, made getting back and forth very easy. We lived in other parts of Asia for several years and have always felt a true travel experience is something like what Si and Nee gave us. We highly recommend this.

Our hosts for the day were Si's wife and brother-in-law, as Si was called away for a family emergency, but his family proved to be very friendly, patient and welcoming. We started the day with a market tour, which was very interesting and where our dietary preferences were taken into account, before making our way to the family's well-kept home, where we then prepared food and cooked in their fantastic outdoor kitchen for a couple of hours before sharing lunch with our hosts and two delightful kids from the family. The whole experience was great. The only thing I would note is that in the blurb it said hotel pick-up and return was part of the price, but we had to pay for it separately. Only a minor gripe though, as the class on the whole was fantastic.

We had such a lovely time with Si and his family, cooking 5 delicious dishes. It was fun to go with the family to the local market to pick out all of the ingredients, while they educated us on local produce and meats. Back at their lovely home, cooking in the outdoor patio kitchen over wood fires was a real authentic experience