The journey through the mountainous north has left us ravenous. As soon as we hit the civilization of Vientiane we devoured a whole roast chicken, two mega-sized-mega-spiced papaya salads, half a kilogram of sticky rice and a tin of condensed milk. The meal made us conclude that Asians’ sense of wellbeing has less to do with ideology or philosophy, than with the bliss produced by wicker baskets full of steaming sticky rice.