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10 hours, 4 taxi rides and 2 buses but yet only 100km traveled was my first experience of a land boarder crossing outside Europe. China and Laos are two of only five communist states left in the world however there seems little coordination between. On reflection we should have perhaps researched the trip some more but we expected the track to be well trodden by westerners although as it turns out we didn’t see any on our three day trip to boarder or the day of our boarder crossing. In China we’d come use to expecting a small town but finding large cities which had 5million plus people so finding civilization never really an issue but Laos only has 6 million people and the north is the least populated so went through town after town which really had no more than one shop and no guest houses. Naively we’d actually expected to change money on the boarder luckily Laos operates a duel currency with dollars

Laos Smiles Delight

Stucros
2006-01-13 18:42:20

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10 hours, 4 taxi rides and 2 buses but yet only 100km traveled was my first experience of a land boarder crossing outside Europe. China and Laos are two of only five communist states left in the world however there seems little coordination between. On reflection we should have perhaps researched the trip some more but we expected the track to be well trodden by westerners although as it turns out we didn’t see any on our three day trip to boarder or the day of our boarder crossing. In China we’d come use to expecting a small town but finding large cities which had 5million plus people so finding civilization never really an issue but Laos only has 6 million people and the north is the least populated so went through town after town which really had no more than one shop and no guest houses. Naively we’d actually expected to change money on the boarder luckily Laos operates a duel currency with dollars.

Probably Laos biggest tourist attraction is its people. ‘Sa Ba Dee’ is such a suitable word for a Laos hello. Making the most of every syllable in a laid back way it seems an effort to say

but in Laos nothing is too much effort. Walking about the streets in Laos we were constantly surprised by people coming up to us and just asking how we were and if they could help. First few times you expect there to be some sort of catch some angle for them to sell you something but it’s just a general interest. Laos really does have a secret to living it’s the sort of thing if you could put it in a bottle you’d make a fortune…. And actually some French guy has nearly managed it for Beer Laos is another attraction in itself.

It’s a strange thought to ponder when you’re traveling but being constantly surrounded by the happiest people that you’ve ever met who in a western context have nothing. In Laos this is particularly acute as they are second only to Burma as the poorest SE Asian country and have the unenviable ...