Love and Laos
If Chiang Mai was magical, Laos is freaking Hogwarts.
- Viv
Clarification: Although the Western world spells it with an S at the end it is not pronounced LaoS. It is pronounced Lao. Learn it, practice it, say it correctly. People will NOT know what you are talking about if you say LaoS anywhere in Asia (or they will know you are an American).
Laos was not “supposed” to be this amazing.
We have been on the road for more than 200 days at this point. We are very far from “tired” but we know what we want. We have been looking forward to Vietnam and the Philippines more than anything in Asia…so in our heads we were thinking why prolong the inevitable for a landlocked country that few people visit. Well now we know why.
When deciding next steps from Chiang Mai we had pretty much decided we wouldn’t go to Cambodia and we would “do one week or so” in Laos since it was between us and our intended next stop, Vietnam. Well…spoiler alert, we did much more than a week in Laos and we went to Cambodia too, and we loved both (but more on that later).
Upon some encouragement from a friend who is a more experienced traveler than us, we ultimately decided to give Laos a fair shot and go for more than a quick week. So we got to planning.
The thing is Laos is not a heavily touristed place and is definitely not that technologically advanced (most places don’t have a website or anything) so many of our usual tools for planning were not applicable. Advice from our well traveled friend helped us map out a rough itinerary but this turned out to be the most amount of winging it we have had to do. And it was worth it.
Laos quickly became one of our favorite spots in Asia (even without a beach), and we didn’t even scratch the surface. We can’t recommend this underrated gem of a country more if you have the time and the right mindset.
To visit Laos you really have to come as a traveler not a tourist. If you don’t know the difference, Laos might not be for you. That shouldn’t deter you but is good framing for anyone who wants to visit.
What you can expect when you visit is amazingly friendly people, beautiful scenery, rich history and culture, laid back vibes, and a few potholes.
Some things to be aware of in this hidden gem:
Transiting in and around Laos. While Bolt and Grab have been our absolute go-to’s for ride hailing/taxi service in Asia, neither exists in Laos, everything is done the old fashion hailing and haggling way. They also widely don’t accept credit cards, so hello cash society. Even some hotels booked online through Agoda required cash payment upon arrival. Talk about some shifts in our well established travel routines.
On the other hand, they have a very modern bullet train system that connects Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and Vientiane (among other places) and was fast and convenient. But speaking of shifts… you can’t actually really purchase the tickets except through an intermediary, and the tickets don’t technically go on sale until 2-3 days before departure so…more shifts in our established travel rhythm.
Cash is king. We have started using cash a bit more in Asia, but still only sparingly until now. Virtually no place takes card in Laos, and if they do there is at least a 3% fee added onto most card transactions. To make it slightly more challenging, their ATMs all have some of the higher fees that we have seen on ATMs. Our Schwab checking comes with no ATM transaction fees (and they even reimburse fees others charge) so it’s not a huge deal for us but we sometimes weigh the convenience of card vs. the 3% surcharge. There are a number of places that do take U.S. dollars though so if you are coming from the U.S. you might be able to use that (just make sure you have a good mix of bills cause you won’t get USD change).
The potholes are no joke. In all of our research, there was regular mention of the prevalence of potholes. That was understated. We found out just how pothole riddled the roads are on our first adventure to Kuang Si waterfall. Our driver had nerves of steel and whip fast reflexes as he traversed the beat up roads. While we were excited to be in a place that drove on the right side of the road, in Laos it’s not really about driving on the right side, it’s driving on whatever side has less potholes.
We close with a note about the history of Laos. We knew little about Laos before we decided to come, but quickly familiarized ourselves with the basic overview. There is a tremendous amount of cultural history regarding the indigenous groups in Laos that is steeped in tradition, but, there is also a very dark history that is much more recent, and of course involves the U.S. bombing people. Also referred to as ‘The Secret War’, Laos was turned into the most bombed country in the world, which still has crippling effects to this day. Everyone should know more about this. Here are some things we watched to get familiar with this history:
We want to include our planned and actual itinerary for anyone who decides to follow us to Laos. Since there is so little info out there, anything helps and we are all about helping people see this amazing place (as long as it doesn’t go the way of Thailand and get overrun by tourists).
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2 day slowboat from Thailand to Luang Prabang
Visit: Luang Prabang (LP)
Train: From LP to Vang Vieng
Visit: Vang Vieng (VV)
Train: From VV to Vientiene
Visit: Vientiene
Flight from Vientiene to Pakse
Visit: Pakse
Bus from Pakse to 4000 Islands (Don Det)
Visit: Don Det
Then either:
Bus from Don Det to Siem Reap
A bus back to Pakse so that we could fly from Pakse to Siem Reap
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Flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang
It was the burning season in the region so air quality was abysmal and the slow boat was just not going to be a fun ride.
Visit: Luang Prabang (9 days)
Train: From LP to VV
Visit: Vang Vieng (9 days)
Train: Back to Luang Prabang
Visit: Luang Prabang (6 days) - Yes we loved Luang Prabang this much… but there were two additional factors that brought us back:
Viv has been doing more work from the road and needed some quiet time to catch up on some work.
Our Cambodia travel plans also played into this as there were no flights from Vientiane to Siem Reap, only Luang Prabang to Siem Reap or Vientiane to Phnom Phen.
When we made the final decision to visit Siem Reap Cambodia we opted to cut Pakse and 4000 Islands purely due to time and budget considerations.
And here is our Google Map!