What Do You Know About Laos?

Untouched nature and authentic culture in Southeast Asia.

Laos, as you may know if you’ve seen it on a map, is a country in Southeast Asia, bordering Thailand and Vietnam. A country of smiles, of spiritual atmosphere, of some of the best untouched nature in Asia — and some of the best opportunities to go off the beaten track, especially to experience village life.

A Sad Past And A Hopeful Present

Also, a country with quite a horrific history. Laos remains the most bombed country in the history of the world. Can you believe that? You are probably asking yourself, “What was it involved in?”.

Well, it wasn’t actually at war with anyone. During the US-Vietnam War, during the US bombing campaigns, the US aircraft would drop their bombs on Laos when they returned to their base, because they couldn’t land safely with that bomb. So they dropped them in the jungle, in the north of Laos.

Laos was also where some of the Vietcong went to hide. So the jungle was napalmed and bombed. More bombs have been dropped on Laos than anywhere ever.

After the US-Vietnam war, around 15 years ago — the first time I had the opportunity to visit Laos — there was still some instability. Parts of the country were not safe. There was guerrilla activity in the south and it wasn’t really considered safe to travel south of Luan Prabang and Vientiane, because there were bandits holding up buses — there weren’t the conditions to have a safe and enjoyable trip.

But 15 years later, in 2021, Laos is coming out from being a backwater country and revealing itself as a safe, welcoming, vibrant — and increasingly luxurious — destination.

Luang Prabang is the great highlight. Luan Prabang for me is one of the best Asia destinations, especially when it’s compared to some of the other cities. Asian cities are usually quite big, quite intense, quite in your face. But in Luang Prabang you can sit on a plastic stool at a cafe and watch monks in red robes walking barefoot past you. You can hear the temple bells rather than the traffic noise. You can visit an immense collection of temples where you find ornate carvings, mosaics, goldleaf. You can climb 380 steps to Mount Phousi where you’ll get wonderful views over the city.

It’s a great place. If you’re on a longer Asia trip, and you need some rest and relaxation — when you want to escape the noise, but you still want the culture, the feeling of spirituality that can be offered in Southeast Asia — then Luang Prabang is where to hole up. And they’ve got fabulous spas as well.

Where Village Life Still Exists

Luang Prabang is along the Mekong river, and pretty much everything in Laos spills out from the Mekong river. In Luang Prabang, you can take a boat north along the river, and depending on how far you want to go, you can actually go by river all the way north and all the way through the jungle to the borders — with Vietnam to the east, with Thailand to the west.

If you don’t go by the really fast, scary speedboat, your journey will take a few days and you can visit villages that are completely cut-off by road. They’re only accessible by the rivers.

As you go along, you pass these villages where children are playing and women are washing the clothes and men are fishing — and everybody’s waving. The accommodation along the way is pretty rustic, but it’s a great experience to see that kind of life and village still exist.

Even if you just go for the day from Luang Prabang, if you go north, you’ll find some wonderful caves, the Pak Ou Caves. Inside you’ll see buddhist scenes playing out — thousands and thousands of Buddhas, some of them as big as your fingernail, others bigger than you.

And as you cruise past on the river, you’ll see how the locals experts paddle through the shallows, how the wooden villages are raised on stilts, how the villagers cheer and wave hello at you.

From Luang Prabang, consider going south to Vientiane, the country capital, which feels more like a village — it’s a place of charms, of quiet backstreets, rather than having a big city vibe. It’s another place where you find thousands of miniature Buddhist statues, where you’ll find great collections of Laos Khmer artwork, where you’ll find great coffee shops.

Actually, great coffee shops are something you’ll find all over Laos.

There Are A Lot Of Surprises In Laos

Also, something you will find in this area are great community projects — if you want to see the transformation that the country has been through, what happened before and what is happening now.

For instance, if you go to the north — or anywhere in the jungle around Laos — you’ll find that they use bombshells as ornaments or as fence posts. Which is funny and brilliant and creative to see. But at the same time, there’s the other side of that — there are parts of that jungle still laden with landmines after 45 years. So, there are projects that centre around helping landmine victims.

Further South in Laos there aren’t really any towns, only quite small places, so you can go on an expedition-style adventure. A couple of things I’d recommend are the Irrawaddy dolphins — which you can see around the 4,000 islands — and also the Kong Lo caves, which are some of the longest caves in the world. They are popular now, tourist destinations — but especially compared to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, they don’t have that crowdedness, they still feel somewhat undiscovered.

There’s a lot to do in Laos. There are a lot of surprises. It’s easy to just stop in Luang Prabang and leave, but I think doing that is a shame. You can really make Laos a centerpiece of a trip rather than just a little stop.

This is all the more true if you’ve got someone from Laos who knows about the country’s past, who knows about what’s happening in the country now, and who can introduce you to some of the great accommodations they’re now building — especially the spas and the heritage accommodations they have in the cities.

A trip to Laos is what I’d recommend to people interested in seeing something different, something very authentic in Southeast Asia.

Story by Stephen Bailey. Edited by Beatriz Becker.

Listen to Stephen share travel tales and insights on the Kated Travel Podcast.