Discovering Laos

“We eat everything.” That’s what our homestay host, Kham, casually shared as we purchased food at a market outside of Luang Prabang, Laos. Oliver was poking at what looked like severed a Buffalo hoof. She quickly clarified that Lao people don’t eat monkey, elephant, cat, or tiger meat. After two months in Southeast Asia, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing all manner of animals and insects on offer at the local markets. But Laos takes things to the next level. We would see all sorts of new animals being sold in the markets as food, including squirrels, rats, badgers, very large and pulsating larva of some kind, and bats. A few years ago, seeing bats sold as food would have merely struck me as unappetizing. Post pandemic, it’s a bit more complicated.

We responded that we are vegetarians (who sometimes eat fish).

I knew almost nothing about Laos before our arrival in Luang Prabang, the northern provincial capital that sits alongside the mighty Mekong River. Laos is a small, landlocked country of about 8 million people, nestled between China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand. It was once a very prosperous overland trade hub, controlled by the Lan Xang empire between the 13th to the 18th century. Similar to its neighbors, Vietnam and Cambodia, Laos struggled for independence from France before slipping into civil war. Like Cambodia, Laos was used by the North Vietnamese Army to transport supplies and troops during the Vietnam War and was on the receiving end of more than 2 million pounds of US bombs (many of which still litter the jungles and countryside, unexploded).

Today, Laos is more known for its rapid economic growth (7.5% annually) driven primarily by its mineral wealth. Laos’ lush mountains also export fresh water and hydroelectric power to its SE Asian neighbors. These resources led to a flood of investment from Laos’ northern neighbor, China, over the last 15–20 years. In fact, this is something we’ve seen a lot in our travels. China is the world’s largest buyer of natural resources. As a result, it is building roads, dams, railways, and ports throughout the developing world. China’s influence in these countries cannot be overstated. Prior to COVID, Chinese tourists accounted for 20% of the global tourism market, spending more than $250 billion beyond their borders. The absence of Chinese visitors, and their spending, is sadly evident everywhere we go.

Back in Luang Prabang, we wanted to clean our clothes, catch up on school work a bit, and just chill. The prior few days in Hanoi during Tet had been fun, but exhausting. Our AirBnB was perfect. It sat down a quiet alley, overlooking the Nam Khan River. This was one of the nicer places we’ve managed to find on AirBnB, with a spacious deck and outdoor garden. Even the paintings were calming. And we were a short walk to all we needed in town. LP is a great walking town, tucked between the Nam Khan and Mekong Rivers. Everywhere and at varying times of the day, the views were stunning. Most nights, we found a spot to sit and watch a gorgeous sunset.

A few days into our stay, Oliver saw some boys playing along the river below our house. Much as he’s done throughout this trip, he ran down and started playing with the kids. For the next couple of hours, the boys trapped and pulled little fish from the river, cleaned them with Oliver’s pocket knife, and proceeded to grill and eat them on the spot. Oliver was in heaven. The international language of “boy” once again prevailed. We were too far away to capture any of this in decent photos, and didn’t want to interrupt the authenticity of the experience. But if you squint, you can see Oliver in his red shorts below.

As much as we needed some downtime, we are not ones to sit around for very long. On the third day, we joined a group that would kayak up the Mekong, visiting a Buddhist temple built inside a cliffside cave as well as an elephant sanctuary. Getting to feed elephants by hand was an unexpected treat that all of us loved. Later that day, we hiked to and swam in a series of cascading waterfalls at Kuang Si.

Like everywhere else in Southeast Asia, motorbikes are the primary mode of transportation. We wouldn’t dare drive ourselves in cities like Bangkok or Hanoi. But we rented one for a couple days when we were in Hoi An, Vietnam, an area of similar size and traffic density to Luang Prabang. So we decided to rent a couple to help us further explore the areas outside the city for a day. We zipped into the mountains to find more waterfalls and hikes. The highlight was an afternoon spent milking water buffalos and bottle feeding buffalo calves at the Laos Buffalo Dairy. The farm also has pigs, goats and bunnies. The kids obviously loved interacting with the animals and we all got to enjoy cheese and ice cream made from the buffalo milk.

After a few days in LP, we traveled two hours into the countryside where we’d spend three days living with a local family in a traditional Laos home. This was one of the best experiences of our entire trip. The home was built using reclaimed wood from a house in a nearby village that was about to be chopped up for firewood. Our host, Kham, bought and reassembled the home on a patch of land along the Nam Ou River, which she and her family cleared from the surrounding jungle and bamboo forest. The homestay and neighboring village can only be reached by boat — a very long, narrow, and unstable fishing boat in our case. The tiny village consists of about 125 families, a temple, small primary and secondary schools, and the gardens and rice fields they manage and tend for their livelihood.

We learned so much in those three days. Kham is a force of nature. She grew up in the same village in a house made of corrugated metal, selling sticky rice with her mom, before moving to LP for better schools and more work opportunities. Only 25, she built this homestay along with another closer to LP while raising two daughters. She led us through the market as we purchased fish, vegetables, and fruit for our meals that she and her aunt would prepare during our stay (with some assistance from Sydney and Meg). Kham and her uncle also took us net fishing. We caught only the tiniest fish, water bugs, and shrimp — nothing we’d usually consider eating. But Kham made it clear we’d be eating whatever we caught. The same held true when we spent an afternoon walking along the rice fields and along the jungle’s edge, foraging for banana flowers, morning glory, wild ginger, and other herbs, veggies, and plants. She filled a large shoulder bag full of stuff that would later end up on our dinner plate. And it was so good.

Kham also taught us a bunch about Lao culture. We rose early on our second day to visit the local temple monastery and give alms to the monks — sticky rice and money. Meg and Sydney had to wear special skirts and we each wore a white sash during the formal, daily ritual. Meg and Sydney watched a riverside ceremony, where a lay monk blessed a new boat that was carried down to the water by family members of the boat’s owner.

Kham later walked us through the village and explained the differences between the three main ethnic groups in Laos. She knew exactly how many families in the village were from the Lao, Khmu, and Hmong groups, together accounting for roughly 75% of the population in Laos. It amazed us to learn that these families live in very close proximity, sharing the limited resources of this tiny village. But they speak different languages, have very different cultural practices (polygamy is allowed in Khmu and Hmong but not Lao families), eat different food, and never intermarry.

More than anything at Kham’s homestay, we enjoyed peace. We played cards around a fire, napped and read in hammocks, and caught up on our journaling. While we chilled, Kham and her uncle removed bamboo clusters and transferred dirt from unwanted mounds to the uneven spaces exposed when they cleared land for the house. Fighting back the jungle is an ongoing effort. We gladly joined in. It felt satisfying to get sweaty and dirty doing some outdoor work. Oliver built an earthen oven from one of these mounds from which he roasted sweet potatoes. All of this capped with a sunset boat ride on the river. It was all perfect.

After leaving Kham’s homestay and LP, we traveled south to Vang Vieng. In the early 2000’s, VV was known as a hedonistic stop on the Southeast Asia backpacker circuit. Hostels and bars pumped visitors full of drugs and booze as they drifted on rafts and inflatable tubes down the Nam Song river. That is until people started getting hurt, and worse. Today, things are more focused on the natural beauty of the river and the surrounding limestone mountains. The backpacker vibe and smell of cannabis remain. But we were among many families who spent more time hiking and kayaking than getting hammered in bars.

While the town of VV isn’t much to look at, the surrounding landscape is stunning. The jagged, layered mountains to the East and West provide amazing sunrises and sunsets. Those mountains also contain huge and seemingly endless cave systems, some of which produce spring-fed lagoons that make for a refreshing retreat from the 85F temperatures. Mostly, we were excited to do some hiking. We’ve found that hiking isn’t really a thing in Southeast Asia. The idea that one would walk (uphill no less) for recreational purposes is kind of silly to locals. We were happy to find a place with proper trails. However, VV trails are short and nearly vertical since the limestone mountains rise dramatically from the flat river valleys below. We climbed four different trails to various viewpoints, each about 30–40 strenuous minutes each way. Atop each were stunning views as well as a “prop” with which to pose for your pictures.

Our last experience in VV was a reminder that bad stuff can still happen when on vacation. After a day of motorbiking, hiking, and swimming, we stopped at a roadside bar to watch the sunset and grab a snack. As we waited, a procession of off road vehicles sped down the same road returning from one of the valley’s many ATV parks. Right in front of us, a front wheel of one buggy sheared off, sending it into a full somersault and launching 2 of its passengers headlong into the field. Meg’s first-responder instinct went into full effect as she ran to assess the situation and aid the thrown passengers. Both miraculously suffered minor cuts and scratches. However, Meg found a third passenger, pinned under the vehicle with a badly fractured arm/wrist. The following scene was chaotic as people stopped to help, eventually lifting the ATV off the passenger (Meg already assessed that there was no spinal injury). While Meg cared for and calmed the injured driver, it took at least 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. This prompted the bar owner to share with me that Laos is a terrible place to get hurt. This guy, an American that works for the embassy, was lucky as he’d be flown to Bangkok for surgery.

Grateful to be safe, and to have an amazing nurse wife/mom on our team, we said goodbye to Laos. A couple days later, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Meg shared that we were at the halfway point of our global tour (24.5 weeks). Wow. That went fast. But, strangely, our early experiences feel like they were a million years ago. Together, we’ve learned so much and changed in ways big and small. It will take years for each of us to fully appreciate all that we’ve done and seen on this journey. However, I’ve come up with a few themes to share.

We’ve spent a lot of time together. Taking the travel off the table for a second, few families spend every waking moment together for longer than a week or two, if at all. We’ve been in each others’ faces 24/7 for more than 171 days (but really, who’s counting?). That alone is a pretty rare thing. Not every day has been bliss. But we know and trust each other at a much deeper level than previously possible. We have developed a language, cribbing inside jokes, funny experiences, and references into a family shorthand. Personally, this time has given me the much needed opportunity to practice patience.

Stuff that would have shocked us before now seems commonplace. The smells and sights of the wet markets barely get a rise out of us these days. We cross streets that would have previously paralyzed us with fear. And I can proudly say that my kids can shit literally anywhere. This is a skill that will pay dividends their entire lives. The world is their oyster. You’re welcome.

Homeschooling is hard. I think we’re doing OK on Math as both kids are progressing beyond grade level with the help of a talented remote teacher. And Sydney has a good thing going with her ELA teacher back home. But it’s been a struggle (sometimes a fight) to introduce structure and discipline when our schedules are so unstructured. Meg and I have gone back and forth many times about whether or not it matters. We come back to our original belief that our travels would drive the kids’ educational experience and not the other way around. But it’s hard to not worry about it.

Hiring local guides is key. If we could share one travel hack, whether you’re on a world tour or week’s vacation, it would be to spend a day touring a city with a local guide. Our best experiences have come through matching with guides for bike tours, food tours, homestays, and walking tours. It’s like hiring a teacher for a day. And we’ve learned a ton about religion, culture, history, war, food, and agriculture. Services like AirBnB Experiences and With Locals make it easy to find and book these types of experiences. We’ve even found that in a lot of hotels, they will find someone to walk you around who speaks English. Cheap.

We spent too much time in Europe, not enough in Africa, and 10 weeks in SE Asia feels about right. The first leg of our trip rightly prioritized time with friends and the natural beauty of Northern Europe. But 10 weeks in Europe squeezed our time in Africa, a vast continent, down to six weeks. And, frankly, I was a little nervous about personal safety and the rigors of travel in Africa. Now that we’ve been in SE Asia for almost 10 weeks, I am confident we could have managed Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia, or Zambia. This just means we will have to find opportunities some day in the future to return to Africa.

Recommendations:

• At the top of the list is Homestay Laos and our amazing host, Kham. As mentioned above, the few days we spent with Kham and her family are among the best we’ve had yet on this world tour.
• We ate many great meals in Luang Prabang, but our lunch at Tamarind was the most memorable. Tamarind is also a cooking school, and tells the story of Lao cuisine through its menu.
• The Laos Buffalo Dairy is as interesting to locals as it is to tourists. Before the founders of the dairy arrived in Laos, local farmers had never thought to milk their buffalos. To them, a buffalo is a tractor to pull farming implements and, sometimes, a source of food. This working farm is a labor of love that educates local farmers on the sustainable means of food production using not only buffalo, but also rabbits, pigs and goats. For tourists, it’s a fun place to pet cute animals.
• There aren’t many good restaurants in Vang Vieng, at least that was our experience. Many cater to western backpackers with bad pizza, burgers and weed. Finn’s stood out for its great food, and charming owners, Colm and Na.