“HAVE YOU BEEN TO LAOS?”
When I lived in Cambodia in the 90s, you could be pretty sure if you talked to a backpacker, they’d ask you this. I didn’t get there until the new millennia.
The last -or slowest at least- country to emerge from behind the bamboo curtain, this one time communist, Royalist, Buddhist Land Of A Million Elephants never grabbed the headlines that its neighbours – Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Burma- did.
Despite the devastation wrought by U.S. bombers, the mountains and forests offer hiking for the visitor. Just don’t expect to see wildlife. Any wildlife. Not even birds or squirrels.
Hiking and biking in the north, temple towns, rivers and limestone peaks for climbing, Khmer temples, farming villages. No wonder the backpackers were keen.
MUANG SING
NORTHERN LAOS: Where a million elephants (may have) once roamed.
CENTRAL LAOS: Vientiane to Phonsavan. Reworking this page from a recent trip.
SOUTHERN LAOS: SQUEEZED between Thailand and Vietnam. Coffee, tobacco, Khmers and more.