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Morning Food Market, Luang Prabang

The Morning Food Market in Luang Prabang is an outdoor market, with most of the vendors selling their wares under large umbrellas.

This small market is the Laotian "supermarket" where they come to buy their fresh fruit, vegetables and meat, which are proposed in showcases which are not always the way we use to see in most of our countries. Some products are coming from the jungle around Luang Prabang, and will be for sure highly exotic for travellers from western countries.

The Morning Food Market is starting when sunrise, and finishes usually before 9am.

You can find many unusual foodstuffs like ox-blood which is proposed in gelatinous cubes, serpents, bats, grilled insects (worms, grasshoppers, bee’s larvae, crickets, butterfly chrysalis), giblets covered with flies, caramelised pork’s head, and all sorts of leaves and plants which are used to make the traditional dishes.

You can find Thai products, cultivated in greenhouses, as well as the seasonal Lao products. Freshly caught fish, bunches of local flowers especially made for leaving in the temples as offerings, as well as many other items.

The butcher.
The Morning Market is a simple outdoor market where most of the vendors display their wares on the ground.

  • Only a butcher and some of the more touristy stalls have tables for their wares.

Selling fruit and vegetables.

Selling grilled bananas.

Selling different types of chilli.

Selling cheap necklaces and bracelets.

Selling spices.

Selling fresh lychee.

Selling grilled honeycombs.

Selling raw meat.

Making offerings in the spirit house.
A spirit house is a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

  • They are normally in the form of small roofed structure mounted on a pillar or a dais, and can range in size from small platforms to houses large enough for people to enter.
  • Spirit houses are intended to provide a shelter for spirits that could cause problems for the people if not appeased.
  • They often include images or carved statues of people and animals.
  • Votive offerings are left at them to propitiate the spirits; more elaborate installations include an altar for this purpose.
  • See more at Spirit house - Wikipedia.

Selling fish and eggs.

Selling grilled sausages and salad.

Selling sauces.

Selling grilled kebabs.

Selling sweet potatoes.

Selling sticky rice.

Selling Lao dessert with mango and pandan with shredded coconut on top.

Selling mangosteen.

Selling Cake flour coconut (Khao nom kok).

Selling eggs.

Selling shrimp.

Selling salted eggs and preserved eggs (pink).

Selling sauces.

Selling tree bark (left).
Tree bark is used to flavor certain food items during cooking.


Selling fruits and vegetables.

Selling smoked fish.

Selling fresh and smoked fish.

Selling live frogs.

Selling ready-prepared frogs.

Selling Giant water bugs (Lethocerus sp.).

Selling live eels.

General view of the market with stalls on both sides of the street.

Saleswoman preparing jackfruit.

Selling mushrooms.

Selling rat kebabs.

Selling already plucked chickens.

Selling buffalo skin (Nung Yum).

Selling peanuts in shell.

Selling small birds in straw cages.
Vendors would sell these little cages with two tiny birds inside them, people then buy them, pray to Buddha and then release the birds so that they can fly away to freedom.


See also

Source

Location

Location: V4RM+8G, Luang Prabang, Laos