Travel Tips for Laos
Laos is a gem of a country and we loved almost every second we spent travelling north to south down the Mekong. Here are a few tips for things we would recommend and things to avoid while travelling through Laos.
Pak Ou Cave, Luang Prabang, LaosDon Det and the 4000 Islands, Laos
Sunset over the 4000 IslandsThe 4000 Islands or Si Phan Don are a collection of islands in the Mekong River, in the far south of Laos. They're a wonderfully chilled out place to and relax but they're no destination for thrill-seekers.
The boat trip from the mainland into the 4000 Islands was the most eventful thing that happened during our stay. We had an inexperienced boatman; he took a different route to the other boats and we spend much of the journey floating downstream sideways. Some of the local passengers shouted angrily at him, probably regarding his incompetent skippering. After a few rather grinding grates along the bottom, the boat lurched wildly from side to side before getting firmly stuck on a rock. Bear in mind that there were quite a few of us on board including a family with young children and we had all of our belongings (including laptops and cameras) with us - not great if we had capsized! As it turned out the river was not particularly deep at this point, although the water was fast flowing, so all the boys got out of the boat into the waist-deep water and lifted it off the rocks for us to continue our journey unscathed.
On the journey, we started to get an idea of why this place might be called 4000 islands - there are tiny (and I mean tiny!) little islands everywhere - most only big enough for one tree or a some reeds to grow on! In the dry season, there are literally thousands, but I can imagine that all but the biggest submerge in rainy season at the waters of the Mekong rise.
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Sunset over the 4000 IslandsPakse and the Bolaven Plateu
Tat Suong waterfall, near Tat Lo, LaosOur bus to Pakse arrived after midnight. We’d taken the non-airconditioned, non-tourist bus and it was a long, bone-rattling journey, involving frequent stops - sometimes 50 metres apart! The Pakse bus station is miles out of town - so far out of town that it's three times further from the city centre than the local airport - a scam that could only have been dreamt up by local tuktuk drivers, who’ll gladly take you into town for a fee.
By the time we had arrived, the last remaining tuktuk driver at the bus station took full advantage of the scarcity of rides into town and overloaded and overcharged enormously to the point where some luggage (not ours) fell off the tuktuk on the way into town and was damaged on the road.
We stayed at the Pakse Hotel where, as we’d seen a few times on our trip so far, our room did not have any outside-facing windows, but lucky we were moved to a much nicer room for our second night. We found Pakse to be more interesting than Savannakhet with more happening and a real centre.
We hired a brand new Honda XR250 from the Lankham Hotel. Be warned that we've heard some stories of unscrupulous motorbike hire companies in Pakse who'll do all sorts of nasty things to get some extra cash off of you (including stealing the bike from you while you're responsible for it). From everything we've heard, the staff at Lankham Hotel are honest and trustworthy. Unfortunately the bike didn’t have the touring alterations our previous bike from Jules Classic Hire but it was in great condition. As our Laos visa was fast running out, we only had one day and we wanted to see the Bolevan Plateau as we’d been advised to visit by other travellers
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Se Don river, PakseThakhek and Savannakhet
Khoun Kong LengAfter having completed our alternative Thakhek loop we had an extra day before we needed to return our rental Honda XR250 Baja. We decided to use the time to explore around Thakhek and after asking around, found out about the incredible Khoun Kong Leng, or Evening Gong Lake, near the tiny village of Ban Na Kheu. Getting there was an adventure: it involved riding on progressively worse- and worse condition roads until the track was barely a sandy path. We thought the road impassable without a beefy dirtbike, but were put to shame when we passed some locals tackling the road on a clapped-out old Honda scooter! After about an hour of riding we reached the village of Ban Na Kheu. We knew that not many foreigners came this far as the reaction from the local kids was a mixture of fascination and pure terror, instead of the usual smiling and waving - or maybe it was just the slight of me soaked in sweat that scared them!
The lake is spectacular – it is incredibly deep – it’s reputed to be over 70m – and the water was a crystal clear turquoise blue – you could see the roots of the tree going deep down into the water and big fish swimming in the depths. Unfortunately swimming was forbidden. As we were about to leave, a group of young boys armed with spear guns arrived. Obviously they weren’t supposed to be fishing and they sat around nervously avoiding eye contact while they waited for us to leave.
After returning back to Thakhek, Andrew picked up a bad stomach bug, so instead of leaving Thakhek the following day as planned, we stayed for two nights more before catching the bus to Savannakhet.
Savannakhet is a sprawling town, spread out over a large area with little in the way of sights. We found it to be quite boring so only ended up staying there for one night. We did sign up to a one day ‘trek’ through the jungle, so booked the bus for the following evening. The trek was very easy and took us from a salt mine, where we did a tour, through the forest to a village and finally on to a wat (temple).
The highlight of the trek was the local guide, who was fantastic. He didn’t speak English, but was so enthusiastic that he came round and introduced himself to everyone. Throughout the trek he addressed us directly, telling us about life in the forest and enthusiastically explained how the local people utilize the plants. It was wonderfully engaging, even though we didn’t understand a word he was saying. Unfortunately much of what he said was lost in translation as our “English-speaking” translator who didn’t speak much English!
Khoun Kong LengMobile Internet Settings for South East Asia
Monks with Camera phones, Luang Prabang, LaosThroughout South East Asia, we've been purchasing local SIM cards to use in our iPhones. Obviously using data roaming on our UK mobile contract is out of the question due to the prohibitive cost. If you've got an unlocked phone, using Pay-As-You-Go Mobile Internet is one of the cheapest and easiest ways of getting online.
Another great reason to use it is security. Some of the internet cafes you’ll use have got the dodgiest computers imaginable, full of viruses, key-loggers and who-knows-what-else. Every time you type your email, banking or Facebook login details into one of these PCs you’re opening yourself up to attack.
We’ve found that purchasing and activating SIM cards very easy to do. International airports will always have excellent choice for buying a SIM as will border towns. Unfortunately language barriers and the relative newness of 3G in some countries means that getting all the details you need to get online can sometimes be difficult.
For that reason, we’ve compiled a list of all the mobile service providers we’ve used and (nearly) all the details you need to connect, in that hope that other people may find them useful.
The Thakhek Loop, Unlooped
Our ride: A Honda XR250 BajaFrom Vientiane, our next destination was Thakhek, a town in central Laos. Thakhek is fairly well known for "The Loop". This is a motorcycle trip which takes people anywhere from two days to a week, exploring some of the wonderful back roads of central Laos and usually starting and ending in Thakhek. Instead of catching a bus to Thakhek and then doing the loop from there, we decided to kick off our own "Unloop" from Vientiane and ending in Thakhek, while still taking in most of the same sights. This adventure turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in Laos and we would highly recommend it to anyone travelling from Vientiane to Thakhek who's considering doing the Loop.
We hired a Honda Baja XR250 from Jules Classic Company which was definitely the best motorcycle rental outfit that we’ve come across in South East Asia so far. The bike came with full insurance and good quality, new helmets. Owner Thierry has even had the pillion foot pegs on his bikes lowered to make the ride more comfortable for passengers. We arranged with Jules Classic to have our luggage shipped to Thakhek for a small fee and agreed to drop the bikes off with their agent when we arrived in Thakhek.
For the first day was a long day’s riding at around 280km and took us to Na Hin. We rode as much as we could off Highway 13, using a good condition dirt road which runs alongside the Mekong for some of the way. Head for Buddha Park and continue straight along this dirt road. Eventually this joins back onto Highway 13, a fairly boring ride until you reach Highway 8. Riding eastwards on Highway 8 was spectacular. We wound up and down steep mountain passes on an excellent quality road, passing amazing mountain views and strange karst limestone clusters.
Once we reached Na Hin, the guesthouse that we planned to stay at was full and they directed us to the excellent Sainamhai Resort where we stayed in a very nice new bungalow. The resort is very new, and is not yet in any of the guidebooks, but we highly recommend staying here. Free coffee, excellent food with fabulous portions and very friendly staff made for a perfect rest stop. Ask a local in Na Hin for directions to Sainamhai, as it’s fairly tricky to find.
Getting ready to travel through Tham Kong Lo
Stalactites in Tham Kong Lo CaveBuddha Park: It’s concrete and it’s wierd.
Buddha Park, or Xieng Khuan, is located about 25km outside of Vientiane, the capital city (or town, really) of Laos. To get there, we hired a tuk-tuk from the centre of town. The journey took about 45 minutes or so.
The park was built in 1958 by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a priest-shaman who attempted to integrate Hinduism and Buddhism into a single religion. After the communist revolution he fled to Thailand where he built another sculpture park in Nong Khai.
To put it mildly, Xieng Khuan is one of the most bizarre collections of statues we've ever encountered. Amongst the reclining Buddhas and three headed elephants you'll find all sorts of crazy monsters, some with multiple heads, some multiple tails. Others with abducted maidens in their hands. Everything is made from concrete. Unfortunately we didn't have a guide; it would probably make much more sense if you did. As it was, we didn't have a clue about what it was that we were looking at. It was puzzling but still extremely interesting to visit, and we would highly recommend visiting it.
Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Reclining Buddha at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Three Headed Elephant at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Statues, Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
View of Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
WTF?
Statue at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Statues at Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
Kate at Buddha Park, Vientiane, LaosVientiane, capital of Laos
Vientiane must be one of the most laid back capital cities in the world — like the rest of Laos everything seems to happen slowly there. We spent four nights in Vientiane where we treated ourselves to a fabulous guesthouse called Hotel Khamvongsa. The fast internet connection allowed us to spend some time catching up with the rest of the world and planning the next steps of our trip.
Vientiane does not have a huge number of sights to see, but it does have some great restaurants and the laid back atmosphere makes it a good place to chill out for a few days. One of the highlights for us was a visit to COPE which is an excellent and very moving exhibition on unexploded ordinances (UXOs) - definitely worth a visit if you are passing through. There are two rather strange sights to see around Vientiane. The first is the oriental Arc de Triomphe known as Patuxay (Victory Gate) which was built using cement donated by the Americans to be used to build a new airport. Not quite as impressive as the original, it is still worth a walk up to see the city views. The second is Buddha Park (aka Xieng Khuan) which is about 25km outside of Vientiane. The park was built in 1958 by a priest/shaman who wanted to integrate Hindu and Buddhism and contains of a collection of rather bizarre concrete Hindu and Buddhist statues.
We hired bicycles to get around, which was very easy as it is pretty flat and the traffic is minimal and slow. On these, we could venture a bit further a field to Pha That Luang, a massive golden Buddhist stupa of great importance to the Laos people, which was unfortunately closed, but from what we could see was quite spectacular.
One of the highlights of Vientiane was definitely the food — we had a lot of excellent international food (French and Italian), but also some great Lao food at the stalls along the Mekong. Great for visiting at sunset, these stalls sell a huge variety of food and walking along them you can see all sorts waiting to be eaten - live frogs and fish in buckets and all manner of vegetables.
VW Beetle, Vientiane, Laos
Tuk-tuk, Vientiane, Laos
Market Vendors, Vientiane, Laos
Vientiane Night Market, Vientiane, Laos
Lao-style Deep Fried Fish
Beerlao
Street Food, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Statues at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Buddha Statue at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Damaged Buddha Statues at Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Wat Si Saket, Vientiane, Laos
Tourist Monks
Buddhist Monks with camera phones, Vientiane, Laos
Patuxay, Vientiane, Laos
Pha That Luang, Vientiane, LaosWant to see more photos or want to see bigger versions of them? Visit our Vientiane Photoset on Flickr, or view a Slideshow.
Vang Vieng
Last Tubers of the Day, Vang ViengWe arrived in Vang Vieng after a rather hairy seven hour minibus taxi ride from Luang Prabang. The trip was advertised as four hours, but our busted up transport was definitely past it’s sell by date. It was old, cramped and very slow.
If the bus was old and tired, the driver was even more so. Never before has there been such a perfect match. If it hadn’t been for Anne, who was sitting up front talking to him in Northern Thai, he would certainly have fallen asleep. As it was, his eyes would shut for moments until Anne politely prompted him with a question or comment and he would wake up. At least it wasn’t possible to go fast in the old banger, which allowed us to enjoy the spectacular views from the numerous mountain passes.
Set on the Nam Song River amongst a series of grand karst limestone peaks which dominate the landscape, Vang Vieng is a dusty collection of concrete guest-houses, woven bamboo bungalows, bars, restaurants and backpacker amenities: internet cafes, travel agents and the like. Bamboo bridges, which are rebuilt seasonally after the rains, crisscross the river.
We found some nice accommodation at the Other Side Bungalows, across a rickety bamboo bridge from the main drag.
In the evening, the whole town feels like a festival. The muddy streets are lined with dozens of bars, each trying to outdo its neighbours with the number of blinking lights on display and the volume of the music blasting out – no matter how few customers they have. At our bungalow, the lights would flicker, seemingly in time to the distant beats rolling across the river from the louder bars. Its as if the towns electricity supply (available most of the time) has been overloaded by the bar sound systems, causing the synchronicity between our pulsing lights and the music.
Occasionally you’ll bump into stumbling, laughing, crazy-eyed gap-year students falling around the streets: they’ve had a bit too much from the “happy” menu available at the bars.
Set further back from the river you’ll find lots of restaurants with TVs prominently displayed, most playing the US TV series Friends day and night. A few play Family Guy. Its bizarre in the extreme: in Laos, in this incredibly beautiful setting, people are spending their time watching crap American TV.
Tubing in the Vang Vieng
Vang Vieng’s main attraction is the tubing. This involves hiring a large tractor tyre inner-tube and traveling by tuk-tuk to a point several kilometres upstream of Vang Vieng on the Nam Song from where you can float back to the town.
If you think it sounds like a serene, relaxing way to spend an afternoon you couldn’t be more wrong. The river is lined with dozens of bars, each with a pumping sound-system, a zip-line, swing or water-slide for the amusement of drunken patrons and possibly also a dance floor full of people cutting rug in their costumes. Most of the bars also offer free shots of Lao-lao, a brutally strong moonshine and also have the ubiquitous happy menu.
Within minutes of floating out onto the river, Richie had nearly had a drunk Japanese guy fall out of the sky on him – he fell from a swing and landed inches from where Richie had serenely been floating along. Some of the swings actually cross paths, so if you or the other swinger (er? I’m guessing that’s not the best name for someone using a swing?) are not paying attention, you could easily have a nasty mid-air collision.
In fact, the whole place is a bit like a scene from one of those silly Health & Safety training videos. You can almost imagine the scene on video with a voiceover in 1950’s BBC-english saying something like: “As you can see, several major health & safety violations are occurring. Can you spot them?”
Very soon you’ve had too much to drink for someone who’s supposed to be swimming 4km down a river (even if you have got a floatation aid).
As the afternoon rolled on, we began to realise that we hadn’t made very much progress back to town. There is a late-fee if you return the tube later than 6pm and in four of so hours we had only made it about one-third of the way. In the ensuing rush, I managed to loose a pair of Oakleys. Kate also managed to loose my shirt. We only made it back into Vang Vieng with minutes to spare and with the sun long gone. Top tip: if you’re planning on going tubing, make sure you keep track of the time!
Other than the wonderful disregard for any health & safety, there is nothing about this town that has any of the laid-back character of Laos. The town has sold its soul for a quick buck, which is such a pity because it could be so much more than it is, although if I was 12 years younger and closer to the average age of the visitors here, I would probably absolutely love it.
The Nam Song River, Vang Vieng
Riding a scooter across bamboo bridge, Vang Vieng
Vang Vieng by Night
Getting my ducks in a row, Vang Vieng
Eating a Sandwich with Chopsticks
Harvesting Clovers, Vang Vieng
Happy Menu, Vang Vieng
Anne & Richie, Vang ViengLuang Prabang
We arrived in the former capital of Laos on the day before New Year’s Eve. The town was absolutely packed for upcoming festivities and it was apparent that the few remaining guesthouses that still had any rooms available had hiked their prices substantially for the influx of people. Luckily we managed to find a reasonable guesthouse close to the centre of town, but many people who arrived the next day really struggled to find accommodation.
Luang Prabang is jam-packed with boutique hotels, cozy cafes and gourmet restaurants. Its like a town straight out of a Mr & Mrs Smith catalog (oddly enough, they don’t actually have a guide from Luang Prabang).
New Years Eve was spent at Hive, a local bar/club, and most of New Year’s Day was spent nursing a horrible hangover; a result of Lao-lao, the local moonshine, and too much Beerlao, although I think the Lao-lao was more to blame. Lao-lao, by the way, is one of the most horrible spirits known to man. In my hazy recollection, it tastes pretty much the same as surgical spirits.
One morning, I got up early and gave alms to the monks. Every morning at day-break, hundreds of monks and novices stream out of the many wats and receive alms from the residents (and tourists) of Luang Prabang. I hadn’t planned to participate in the ceremony, only to watch, but a crafty local entrepreneur quickly seized upon me, jammed a basket of sticky rice in my hands and commanded me to kneel down and wait for the monks to pass. Of course, she demanded payment for the rice. It was exorbitant, but surely it would be wrong to haggle over the price of alms for Buddhist monks? Before the rational part of my brain could respond the sucker part of my brain had handed over the cash.
We also visited the amazing Tat Kuang Si waterfalls, about 30 km outside of town. The water the most incredible turquoise colour, caused by the large amounts of calcium in the water. This calcium deposits itself on everything along the river, and the edge of the waterfall is constantly being built outwards by it, creating wonderfully overhung pools above each waterfall.
On the same trip to the waterfalls, we also visited Pak Ou caves, but were less impressed by the caves than by the waterfall: they were definitely more of a tourist trap and a bit overpriced for what they were.
All-in-all, we absolutely loved Luang Prabang. No doubt, it’s expensive by Lao standards and very touristy, but its UNESCO World Heritage status has protected it from much of the crumbiness that tourism attracts, and the town manages to retain it’s wonderfully laid-back-yet-sophisticated charm.
Photoset on Flickr / Slideshow
Down the Mekong by Slowboat
Slowboats, Pakbeng, Laos
After one last night in Chiang Mai, we headed to Laos with Richie and Anne. We booked a package transfer which would take us all the way to Luang Prabang over three days. We set off on the first leg at midday in a comfortable minivan — luckily we were picked up first, so had a pick of the best seats. The drive was pretty long (around 6-7 hours) and took us to the border town of Chiang Khong where we spent the night at a basic, but clean guest house. We were given supper and breakfast there as part of the package as well as a packed lunch for the next day, and they also took our passports and got them stamped at the Thai border for us and started the process on the Laos side.
The next morning we started the second part of our journey — a two day slow boat down the Mekong, ending in Luang Prabang. We headed of at around 9am to cross the border into Laos – transport across the river was a powered canoe as there is no bridge. The town on the Laos side is called Huang Xai. The visa process was pretty disorganised as Laos immigration had all our passports and would randomly hold them up one at a time for people to come forward to pay. It took quite a long time for the everyone to get through and Richie was the last out.
This is where the organisation that we’d seen so far as part of the packaged transfer ended. Once leaving the border post on the Laos side, there seemed to be random ‘guides’ waiting to collect a group big enough to take in a tuk-tuk – in no way related to the transfer company. Once it was full, we were driven to another port on the river where scare tactics were used to entice us into pre-booking a hotel at the overnight stop (Pakbeng) with stories of full hotels, dirty rooms and cold showers. It turned out that this was actually the best thing to do as we ended up in a decent place which was reasonably priced.
Once the selling was done, we were taken to our slow boat. If you haven’t seen one before, these are long, thin rectangular wooden boats that are packed with uncomfortable wooden benches. Our boat, as it turned out, was already pretty full and as we were getting on rowdy people started chanting “Full! Full! Full!” – it wasn’t the warmest welcome! We struggled to find two benches together, but some kind people moved around for us and so we could all sit together. Luckily we ended up towards the back as it turned out that the rowdy people at the front were ready to party the whole way. By the time we departed (at around noon) they had already finished at least one bottle of whiskey between about four of them and were tucking into the second one, and getting louder in the process. Fine in certain circumstances, but definitely not the people that you want to be seating next to for six uncomfortable hours. I was also really glad that we’d spent the THB40 on cushions as the wooden benches would have felt very hard by the end of the trip without them!
Despite the party happening at the front of the boat, as soon as the we set off, time slowed down. It was incredible peaceful sitting on the boat looking at the beautiful scenery go by and getting a glimpse of the villages as we passed them by. Reading a bit, chatting a bit and just watching the world go by — definitely a great way to relax and get into Lao time. The scenery was mostly green rolling hills with little villages dotted here and there, and canoes and boats docked on the shores. Every now and then we pass a slowboat heading up the river — almost completely empty with its passengers enjoying loads of spaces and waving at us gleefully when they saw our packed boat – if we did it again, we’d definitely do it in reverse!
The first day took just over 6 hours and we arrived in Pakbeng just after sunset. Getting off the boat was a bit of a trauma as there did not seem to be any organisation for how to get your bags off — they were randomly passed off the boat, often picked up by one of the children from the village who would start walking off with them. I don’t think that they meant any harm, as they were just trying to earn some money by carrying the bags, not steal them, but it is pretty concerning when it’s getting dark and people are walking off with bags that may be yours! Eventually we got our bags and headed into Pakbeng. While it once must have been like all the other villages that we passed, this town now revolves completely around the boat loads of tourists that stop off on their Mekong trip. It had a good selection of restaurants and numerous hotels/guesthouses available. Our place was at the top of the hill and was clean and comfortable, although the hot water did not work at all.
The following morning we were told to be at the peer by 9am. Again, it seemed very disorganised as no one was quite sure which boat was going, but we eventually made it on to one and set off for Luang Prabang. The second day passed much as the first, although the party people from the day before were somewhat subdued and looked very tired! We arrived in Luang Prabang at just after sunset (as Richie said — it doesn’t matter what time you depart, you end up arriving just after sunset) where we planned to spend New Year’s Eve.
Slowboat on the Mekong
On the Mekong
Slowboats, Pakbeng, Laos
Slowboats on the Mekong, Laos
Slowboat Family, Pakbeng, Laos
Photoset on Flickr / Slideshow
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