Christmas coconuts

We travelled to Vientiane, Laos to spend Christmas with fiends from Liverpool, who live there. We were joined on Christmas Eve by more friends from Liverpool who live in Sri Lanka.

Both families have two fantastic children who entertained us greatly. James and I continue to be astounded by how perceptive children are, “James why are your pants always showing” (7 year old) and “mummy it’s just Tamarind” (2 ½ year old)!

We spent Christmas morning buying fresh vegetables from a local market and chopping fresh coconuts to eat while awaiting the Christmas feast. Our feast was delayed a little by the gas running out, but a group effort created a fantastic roast turkey dinner!

We visited Laos 2 years ago and it was while we were there we decided we would be coming back to Asia, so it has very special memories for us. Laos is a former French colony, land locked by Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Burma- so apart from fantastic old colonial style architecture it also has great baguettes and vin rouge!

Vientiane is a modest capital which sits on the Mekong river gazing over into Thailand. It is full of noisy mopeds and tuk-tuks, historic temples, golden monks and aromatic bakeries. Our favourite place to hang out is called Joma- mmmmm cinnamon swirl mmmmmm.

So, this year we had a wonderful but very different Christmas experience.

Thank you to our fabulous hosts.