Laos marches, albeit at a sedate pace, on noodle soup. Pho, which was brought to the country by the Vietnamese, and khao biak sen, a more starchy noodle soup dish (and my favourite), are eaten enthusiastically for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

In any given town there are numerous pho shops and you would therefore think it an easy task to find an excellent bowl of noodles but  this is not the case. In recent years Knorr stock powder has been aggressively marketed in the country and very few shops still make their own stock from bones. Additional MSG is added to the stockpot in large quantities and even offered as a condiment on the table. So, alas, finding a good bowl of what is a staple dish has become a challenge. These days your order can be anything from excellent to truly ghastly but most of the time it is mediocre at best.Who would have thought it would become so difficult to find a satisfying bowl of noodles in Laos?

However, I might add that the ones pictured here (pho , top, khao biak sen the other two shots) were pretty damn good.

I was sad to receive a phone call around 8 pm last night telling me that Talat Tong Khan Kham, one of my favourite fresh markets in Vientiane was on fire. It was an enormous blaze that could be seen across the city and the entire market was destroyed.

I used to visit this once vibrant market every time I am in Vientiane and was only there very recently. I feel for the vendors who’s lives will be so badly affected by this tragedy.

It was a fantastic place to photograph. Colourful, chaotic, and a visual feast, the market was always full of friendly folks eager for a joke and a bit of banter.

The traders are a resilient, hardworking bunch and I am sure they will be setting their produce out on a roadside somewhere tomorrow. Let’s hope the site gets cleared and rebuilt as quickly as possible.