Adventure
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”
As I walked down one of the street food markets in the city of Luang Prabang, the various aromas made my mouth water. The humidity of the warm April month surrounding me carried that smell of food for sale and it lingered in the air. Noises of sizzling oil, chopping of vegetables on the cutting board, and snippets of conversation in Lao buzzed in up and down this one street. Handwritten signs of prices and the items that were for sale swarmed the stalls lining the street, waiting for a customer to approach. I was hungry but I saw a variety of foods that were not familiar to me and naturally I was suspicious of these seemingly strange foods.
This was a local street food market in Laos, and they are very popular and important to Laotian culture. Overall, food is a significant theme in their culture but street food also has a large presence because of its convenience and it provides many with means of earning money. These street food markets can be found daily in the city and are an attraction to all in the late afternoon and evening for socializing. Families and friends would come to the street market to wander from stall to stall buying various popular Laotian food. On the other side of the street, other vendors sold handmade goods such as bags, jewelry, clothing, and mementos. In the early mornings, there are produce markets in place of street food which are also very popular. Common Laotian street foods include barbecued meats, spicy papaya salad, noodle soup, salted barbecued fish, coconut rice pancakes (kanom krok), sugar cane juice, and exotic fruits.
Although I was a little nervous about trying these foreign and unfamiliar foods that were presented to me while I was at the street food market, I wanted to try to get out of my comfort zone and experience the culture of Laos. Another idea that I realized looking back on this new experience of a Laotian street food market and seeing all of these exotic foods, was that every culture around the world has different customs and norms. In the US, we wouldn’t think it is strange to see a bacon cheeseburger but in other cultures that is foreign to them. In the Laotian culture, it was normal to go to a street food market to buy these foods that were for sale. What I overcame in this experience is perfectly summarized by this quote: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. I believe it is very important to try new and unknown experiences in our lives especially when traveling abroad. If we don’t push ourselves past that point of comfort, we will never be able to experience all of these new and exotic things and cultures our world and its people have to offer to us.