Laos – the things that surprised us…

Previously we knew Laos only from stories. Firstly, we heard that this is an extremely cheap country. Secondly, that we would easily be struck by poverty as it is the case in Cambodia or Myanmar.. Hmm, we started to doubt it as soon as we arrived there and noticed Toyota Hilux vans and other cars of leading automotive brands passing the roads here and there, even in small villages. There are very few old cars on the roads, the rest of them look like brand-new ones. What’s more? We also heard that Lao people are extremely open and communicative (resembling Sri Lankan people in this way).. Hmm, well, and here again we have a doubt .. So how does it really look like?

We spent about 3 weeks in Laos. Someone could say: ” It’s too little time to get to know this country’’. Yes, probably they are right, but it’s also quite enough to establish some opinions on the people, their mentality, culture and be able to recommend various places to visit, give some hints about prices, especially if one uses the local transportation on a daily basis and observes local people, and not only ‘’ticks off’’ the well-known places in their destinations bucket list…

 

Here below you will find our conclusions:

1.So is it really cheap in Laos?

a) accommodation – this is absolutely cheap, you can sleep for 3 dolars and you don’t have to book accommodation in advance as the places available online on booking.com or agoda.com are much more expensive. Our examples: Pak Beng village, Luang Prabang, Phonsavan, Don Det island. But if you go to Vientiane or Pakse you had better book something online (we stayed there for 4-5 dolars per person.

b) food – it is not as cheap as in Myanmar (where we ate for 0,25-1USD), Cambodia (where you had many local meals for 1USD), and even the Lao local cuisine is a little more expensive than the one in Thailand. Practically it’s not possible to eat in Laos for 0,25-1USD, the lowest price for a bar meal is 15.000Kip / 2USD, although the standard prices are 25.000-50.000Kip / 6-9USD – we know, it’s still cheap, but not the cheapest – especially look at the accommodation prices – sometimes it may turn out that you pay less for a hostel than for a meal!

A huge plus is the fact that the Lao kitchen is a combination of Thai cuisine and Burmese style of  serving dishes and hospitality : when you order a meal in a local bar for 2USD (e.g. chicken with rice & basil / ginger / sweet-sour version or whatever you want, you’ll get additionally a bowl of soup resembling very much our Polish broth. The dishes are seasoned perfectly, and we would even say that the Laotian cuisine wins with the Thai and Burmese ones. In addition, due to the fact that Laos was once a French colony you can easily buy the following products here: bread, buns and various types of cakes. In this case the prices are definitely overrated. You will have to pay 3-4USD for a French croissant or any regular looking buns.

A medium-sized portion of fish from the Mekong River costs 40.000Kip / 5USD – and you have to pay additionally for rice, side salad or any other food that you want it to be served with.

Here below you can find some of our cheapest food options to choose from in Laos:) :

1)These 2 ”dishes” with meat and rice were our breakfast when we stayed in Pakse (chicken on the left side and pork on the right side) bought both for 1,50USD at a food stall:) (our cheapest and simplest dish!)

2)There are lots of vegetarian options, and in some places you can literally fill up the bowl they give you with the food provided in the form of a buffet for only 15.000Kip. You will find there a large selection of salads, vegetables, pancakes, fruits, battered vegetables, e.g. onions (there are lots of stalls with this kind of food in Luang Prabang).

3)Below: a bowl of vegetable noodle soup (the one they served us at Mr Tho’s bungalows in Don Det for 12-15.000Kip/up to 2USD).

4)In Phonsavan we had our favorite bar with local food close to the main market in the town. The dishes were seasoned perfectly, and we managed to satisfy our stomachs for 15.000Kip / 2USD per person.

5)You have to pay at least  20.000Kip/2,50USD for a chicken salad in Vang Vieng (it is served with a nice fair dressing, potatoes, egg, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber and bread).

6)Crispy chicken noodle dish that we ate for 15.000Kip/2USD in a local bar in Vientiane:

7)Grilled bacon pieces on sticks were sold for 10.000Kip/1,25USD on stalls in Vang Vieng:

8)In Luang Prabang you could also buy skewers for 1USD each: you could have them with chicken, pork, thick sausage (we don’t recommend the local sausage however!) or meat and vegetables and you could have it with noodle/rice with vegetables (noodle/rice were for 10.000Kip/1,25USD) or get fresh or fried spring rolls for 10.000Kip:

c) alcohol – Lao local whiskey with a bear on the bottle called Red Bear is very cheap and quite nice – for 12.000Kip / 1,50USD or you can try Black Lion – 15.000Kip / 2USD (of course you can find the same alcohol with overrated prices; the prices we mentioned are the lowest we found). We do not recommend ‘Black 99’ whiskey – honestly we poured almost an entire bottle into the sink, as its smell was putting us off each time we wanted to taste it!

d) transport – contrary to what everyone told us before: local buses in Laos are quite pricey.. We spent a lot of cash on moving around in buses, first from Luang Prabang to Phonsavan, then from Phonsavan to Vang Vieng, then to Vientiane and from there to Pakse and each time we paid 12,50USD and more (we had been told before that we would pay only 5-6USD for buses…). The slowboat from Thailand to Luang Prabang in the package tour with the minivan and an overnight stay near the border cost us 50USD.. Of course we paid even more for sleeping buses, e.g. from Vientiane to Pakse the prices ranged from 140.000 to 170.000Kip / up to 20USD – travel agencies sold tickets for 140-150.000Kip (including the pick-up from the hotel), but surprisingly you had to pay 170.000Kip at the local bus station (not including the pick-up). Some night buses with a worse quality (without the VIP sticker) cost 120-130.000Kip / 15-16USD.

In addition, to rent a motorbike you need to pay much more than in other Asian countries. In many places, they quote 80-100.000Kip / 10-12,50USD for rental for 1 day. In Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines you will pay only 5-6USD for rental. Moreover, in Laos they will ask you to leave your passport at the rental office – unfortunately, this can not be avoided: either you agree for their conditions and leave your passport, or forget about renting anything! On the other hand, you do not need a driving license (neither your national license nor the international one), the most important document in case the police stops you on the way is a contract signed with the rental company, that’s it.

e) admission fees to tourist attractions (and not only there!) – they’re indeed dirt cheap. However, it’s simply annoying that you have to pay for everything (no matter that it’s not much, but still it was quite irksome to us). Take the waterfalls as an example: the admission fee (quite reasonable price: 2,50USD) for the spectacular Kuang Si waterfall is not a surprise, as this is an extraordinary UNESCO site, but what about crossing some bridges in Vang Vieng when you want to get to the other side of the river? – this we cannot understand! Other bridges that you will be charged for are: the one leading to the Chang Cave (the ‘’orange’’ bridge – for only 0,25USD but do they really have to charge us for this?) and the bridge connecting Don Det island with Don Khon island (35.000Kip / 4USD – you can actualy avoid it if you want to explore Don Khon skipping its waterfalls – we went o the Island to see the local life and go for a boat trip to see the Irrawaddy dolphins – but if you decide to eventually go to the waterfalls along the way, you can pay the entrance fee directly there – the same price as the ticket upon crossing the bridge).

2. Is Laos a poor country?

We were expecting this to be a fact.. However, we got surprised when we saw the full monty cars passing the road, the ones which in Poland would cost us 200.000PLN/50.000USD! Lots of Toyota’s pick-ups and vans caught our eyes and we got an impression as if they handed out here to everyone for free .. On the other hand, looking at the living conditions of the inhabitants, many Europeans would say: ‘Why does everything seem to be so neglected, dirty, poor, and decrepit houses contrast with luxurious cars? ”. The locals live in filth, do not renew their old hovels, they will not even guess that there is something to be repaired, restored, won’t notice the paint coming off the walls, doors falling off, the sink barely hanging in the bathroom etc., litter scattered around the house (it’s true you will see the same thing in Cambodia or Myanmar – where it is even worse, but there you will not see the full monty cars in the road). Generally you can see that Lao people live better, and it is a higher standard of living from what we expected. Furthermore, the city roads are much cleaner than in Cambodia and Myanmar.

3. The Lao people were ‘’supposed’’ to be extremely open, communicative, sociable but we have some mixed feelings reagrding this. On one hand, we came across a few situations when we were invited to a table for beer by some men sitting in front of their houses in a small town, and a friend of ours that we met while travelling was invited to a party in a small village near Phonsavan, the host was nice but … the rest of people were keeping distance and some children were afraid of sitting next to her or even touch her white skin.. that’s why our friend was not feeling fully relaxed at this local event. Yet another example: passing some small village on the way we wanted to stop for a pee, and we asked a local woman if we could use the toilet near her shop and house, she was reluctant to let us in so we asked the other locals nearby and nobody wanted to let us in, even for money – quite surprising – we didn’t have such a problem in Sri Lanka, or even Georgia (which is culturally closer to Poles), where tourists are actually also invited for wine and food home and treated as best guests.

What else can we add? It often happens in local buses that you will come across some people (usually women, but not only) who will take your seat, as they do not check the seat number on their ticket and will sit where it suits them and later quarrel with you speaking their language not understanding why you want to move them from the seat they picked? While traveling with the Lao it’s dazzling that people do not know what good manners are and, surprisingly, even though they are Asians, they seem to feel offended when you ask them to do something or comment on something – they can easily consider it as a biting remark (we don’t know why, and it look as if they were asked to do something the contradictory way to their own preferences). Furthermore, women leave small children alone in the seat on the bus and get off anor a break not perceiving this as a potentially dangerous situation for their children. In our presence more than once a small 1.5 year-old child fell from his seat and almost smashed his head, beside, kids were often left alone with strangers and feeling frustration started crying as if they were being slaughtered – maybe we’re touchy on this point, and perhaps we should not comment on this because we do not have kids, but it all simply hurt and upset us. In addition, the mother dressed cleanly and elegantly does not wash her child’s face, and will not put even socks on the kid’s feet at a temperature below 17 degrees Celsius, she doesn’t  feed the child when you can see that he/she is hungry (one of them wanted to devour me with his eyes when I was eating he last bite of some fruit), but only when he/she sobs out of his/her helplessness and can no longer put up with his/her hunger.

4.You may be surprised by another fact as well – Lao drivers drive their cars incredibly slowly! ‘’Are we still Asia? Can’t believe it!’’ – we were asking ourselves. When we rented a motorbike and were visiting some village we drove 80km/h passing on the way huge cars driving only 30-40km/h, and there wasn’t any traffic on the road at all…! As we went on a trip to see the waterfalls in the Bolaven Plateau, honestly we regretted that we hadn’t taken a motorbike and drive those 200kms ourselves. We were suggesting to the driver that we were moving at a snail’s pace but it didn’t help us much.. Of course there are exceptions, but 8 drivers out of 10 were moving slow like a turtle.

5.Do you know where the smallest capital in the whole Southeast Asia is located? It is in Laos – Vientiane – a city that you can visit in one day at a relaxing pace.

The most important monument in the capital is a gold-covered Buddhist stupa called That Luang, but to be honest if you have already visited the remarkable stupas/pagodas in Myanmar literally dripping in gold, this monument will not make an imrepssion on you at all! Besides, sincerely it is not worth entering the area where the stupa is, you can see it very well before crossing the wall it’s surrounded by (the admission fee is cheap: 5.000Kip / 0,60USD, but there is nothing more in this area to look at so it doesn’t make sense to pay for it).

What more to visit in this small capital?

1) Patuxai – the local Arc de Triomphe (you can go to the top of the arch and shoot a picture of a fountain square and the surrounding area – entry-3.000Kip / 1,50PLN).

2) The temples located on the right and left side of That Luang (which for us were definitely more impressive than That Luang itself and where you don’t need to pay for the entry, you will also find there a golden statue of reclining Buddha).

 

3)Sikaset Museum (entry- 5.000Kip/0,60USD)

4)Ho Phra Keo (a beautiful temple)

5) Buddha Park (situated 25km away from Vientiane) – can be reached by the local bus number 14 for 6.000Kip / less than 1USD, the admission fee to the garden is 5.000Kip so even less.

6) COPE (Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise) – a place which helps those injured after stepping on mines, which are still there near Phonsavan (the ‘’legacy’’ after the Vietnam War left by the Americans). COPE is a resort where the Lao who cannot afford prosthesis can get it for free, besides, it is a rehabilitation center for the Lao.

7) parks: a smaller one is located on the way from Patuxai to the That Luang and another one called Chao Anouvong Park can be found close to the Presidential Palace with the famous monument of the king Anouvong.

6. Lao temples, language and alphabet are very similar to the Thai ones. Besides, you can see that Thai and Lao people get along without any problem communicating with one another in their own languages. What distinguishes Laos from Thailand is primarily more greenery, nature, landscapes.. Moreover, Laos is not touristy (only Vang Vieng – a small Laotian town is literally packed with tourists) as Thailand, and thus – thanks to its naturalness and lightheartedness you can really find your own place and relax.

7. How do local people spend Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights? The whole family (the younger and the older ones) gather at the table in front of the house with food and drinks, a microphone and a huge tv screen, which displays the text of the lyrics and this is how the karaoke party starts! Everyone has to have their go, no one will skip the singing, which also means that you have to endure their singing up a storm half a night when you stay at a nearby hostel – hehe, good luck! 🙂