Take a Lao Cooking Class

Cooking classes are a way to personalize your travel experience. Lao cuisine is difficult to find outside of Laos. Most classes will show you the most common dishes like green papaya salad, larb, mok pa (similar to Khmer amok) and sticky rice. While Thailand may be one of the world’s top rice exporters, Laotians eat more sticky rice than anyone else.

While Thai and Vietnamese restaurants seem to be on every corner in most major cities, Khmer and Lao cuisine are relatively unknown outside of Southeast Asia. Ethnic Lao people are said to outnumber ethnic Thais by a ratio by six to one in the Isan region of Thailand. When you eat green papaya salad and larb (two of the most popular items at Thai restaurants), you are eating Lao cuisine.