.: Laid back Laos

Our guidebook says that when travelers arrive in Laos they utter ‘aaahhh’ and that Laos is the Southeast Asia’s most relaxing country to travel in.

For the first few days we traveled with Roger, German guy with whom we’ve already been traveling from China. He was very nice and very organized and punctual (the last 2 are very uncommon in Asia…).
Our first stop was Luang Nam Tha, beautiful town surrounded by mountains and rice fields. The best way to explore the place was to hire a bicycle or scooter and drive wherever the way leads you. We rented 2 scooters and for the whole day we were visiting the nearby villages and other areas. The one we liked the most was hill tribe village, 10 km ride all the way up, almost on the top of the mountain. Its inhabitants looked very happy and relaxed, even though there was no electricity, no running water, things that we normally take for granted. All the kids came to us smiling and posing happily to our pictures. Nice place, nice people.

Typical Laotian house

Lukas and Roger

Children from the hill tribe village

as above

Woman from the hill tribe

Our next stop was Luang Prabang, where we wanted to get by boat. We thought it’d be a romantic river trip along Mekong, but it turned out to be very tiring journey on a fully packed boat. There were more than hundred tourists, not really backpackers, but people in posh clothes, wearing perfumes and with 3 pairs of sunglasses… We felt a little bit out of place. Anyway, it was worth the hassle as Luang Prabang was a great place.

Waterfall, Luang Prabang

as above

One day when we were thinking where to go next, Lukas read about huge, enigmatic jars of unknown origin that are situated around Phonsavan, so we went there.
The town itself has nothing special to offer, but in there we’ve learnt that Laos was one of the most bombed countries on earth!

As the guidebook says: “Between 1964-1973 the USA conducted one of the largest sustained aerial bombardments in history, flying 580,344 missions over Laos and dropping 2 million tons of bombs! Around 30% of the bombs failed to detonate, leaving the country littered with unexploded ordnance (UXO). The clearance started in 1994 but only a small percentage of UXO has been removed and it will take more than 100 years to make the country safe.”

I don’t think I have to add anything to that…

Plain of Jars

as above

Safe path labeled between those stones...

Locals use the war scrap to decorate their shops or restaurants

...or guesthouses

For a few days we went to Vientiane.

Pha That Luang, Vientiane

Patuxai

Architecture

Buddha Park, near Vientiane

Our last destination was very green and laid back Four Thousand Islands, where we took our time to chill in hammocks at the riverbank reading books and contemplating sunsets.