Luang Prabang’s Crafty Hmong

Every night loads of Hmong people (one of Laos’ many ethnic groups) from surrounding villages migrate to Luang Prabang bearing handmade textiles, clothing, purses, and even cloth children’s books and set up shop right on the main road...

Even though the night market is definitely tourist oriented, it showcases a lot of traditional handiwork that has been part of Hmong culture for centuries.  The most popular style of craftwork you see here is batik, which involves making patterns on cloth out of wax and then dying the cloth, resulting in the areas covered with wax remaining uncoloured.  The best thing though, for sure, about the night market is the food street where you can find everything from cat poop biscuits (a local delicacy not made of actual cat poop) to $1USD buffets.  Definitely the best chicken and buffalo barbeque around! 

Hmong Batik, hand-made at a village near you.