In this Laos blog you can read all about an unforgettable adventure in which we backpacked through Laos! This forested country in Indochina is perfect for a quick stop of a week or a few days during a longer itinerary through Southeast Asia. So are we: at the time of writing we are halfway through a year-long world trip. Together with Suus I ended up in Laos after wandering through China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and South Korea, we toured Myanmar in recent weeks. You can click on these countries to see/read more about the entire route! Of course, you can also just take two weeks off for a complete Laos holiday.
So move on quickly, because the express train of life-changing experiences continues. From Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, we take the bus to Thailand. Good to know: the bus connections in this part of the world are fantastic! We’ll be at the border in about five hours. From the border town of Mae Sot you can travel to Chiang Rai, the largest city on the border with Laos, in one long travel day. Are you traveling from Bangkok to Laos? Then you can take a beautiful train route to the north with stops in the royal city of Ayutthaya, the safari area Khao Yai and the cultural capital Chiang Rai. But now more about the journey through Laos, where we visit the most remote villages and the beautiful nature!
With the slow boat on the Mekong
It is about seven o’clock in the evening when we take the tuk-tuk from the Thai town of Chiang Kong to the Laotian border. There is no dog. Literally and figuratively; Considering the number of street dogs in Southeast Asia, this is quite special. We fill out some paperwork, receive our visa from the customs officer and in the meantime watch the sun descend rapidly. While it was still light in Thailand, it is already pitch dark in Laos. There Suus and I are, two unprepared backpackers, walking in a deserted no man’s land with some stately border buildings. A big difference between Northern Thailand and Laos is that the streets are a lot quieter, something to take into account! How should we proceed?
It’s dead quiet; there is literally no one to be seen all the way to the horizon. We walk back and forth on the street, hoping against hope that a taxi driver has gotten lost and will come pick us up; but it looks like we have a problem. Spending the night on the sidewalk of a deserted border area under a Laos flag, for lack of a blanket, is not necessarily at the top of my bucket list.
The hospitality of Laos
But then a pickup truck arrives full of children. What they do here is a mystery, but we are allowed to hitch a ride in the trunk and are in the busiest street of Huay Xai in no time. The group wants to take a picture with us outside and we thank our lifesavers for their hospitality. Backpacking through Laos is off to a good start! Here in this small town along the Mekong River, we take a so-called slow boat through the north of Laos to the most sacred place of Luang Prabang.
If you want to do the Gibbon Experience in Laos, declared the most valuable trek by Lonely Planet (very pricey, by the way), then Huay Xai is your starting point.
Backpacking in Laos by slow boat
They didn’t exaggerate anything with the name ‘slowboat’. Sitting on uncomfortable little benches, I occasionally look out the window to see if we are sailing backwards. It takes us two whole days to cover a distance of less than two hundred kilometers! The view and the entire entourage of the tour make up for a lot; we are treated to the most beautiful places in Laos.
Between steep cliffs and green mountains, the Mekong River meanders past remote villages and beautiful nature, where local fishermen wave and children spontaneously dive off the rocks as we sail past. The people here live isolated from the outside world; our snail boat gives us an insight into this special culture. Also not bad: we see elephants drinking from the river along the way! Halfway through the tour we stop in Pakbeng for an overnight stay.
The sleeping village of Pakbeng
It is beautiful to see how the village of Pakbeng comes to life as soon as our boat with money, because that is how it is, arrives. During the day the entire village is in turmoil and in the evening the lights come on, the bars open and the hotel owners attract as many tourists as possible. When we walk through the main street we are ‘attacked’; they shout all kinds of prices together and if we wait long enough they become lower and lower. So we sleep in a beautiful room for a ridiculous five euros. Romance blossoms and we eat between hundreds of colored lanterns on the banks of the mighty Mekong.
The second day our slow-motion boat seems even slower than the first. Even old grandfathers in fishing boats often overtake us very easily. Only late in the evening do we arrive in the promised holy city, Luang Prabang, with a wooden stand on which you can cut a cheese board.
The pearl of Southeast Asia: Luang Prabang
Vientiane is the capital of Laos, but Luang Prabang is the place to be when you go backpacking in Laos. We walk along the water to the street where the cozy and dirt-cheap guesthouses are located. On spec, there is always a room available and we can get a good deal. We drop the stuff, get a ‘flie lice’ as quickly as possible and immediately dive into the modest nightlife of Luang Prabang. This is urgent, because there is a curfew in Laos. Even the popular hang-out Utopia, where we drink some delicious Laos Beer in a large garden with all kinds of lounges and mood lighting, closes at half past eleven.
A game of bowling with the Mafia
So what do you do if you haven’t got your alcohol percentage up to standard around half past eleven? Seems simple, right? Then you just MUST go bowling. As bizarre as it sounds, it is: we get into one of the special bowling tuk tuks with a few new friends, are taken a little outside the center to a hypermodern bowling alley and suddenly we are in Europe. The only difference is that you don’t wear dirty second-hand sweaty shoes here, but just your birth shoes: your bare feet.
The bowling is of course a side issue, because you can get a bottle of whiskey for three euros! On every track we see tourists wandering drunkenly across the track. More gutter than cone is hit, while they are busy behind the scenes with the white laundry. And not with the new Witte Reus formula. No, this Bowling Alley is managed by the Laotian mafia. Secretly a bit wrong, but still a must-do!
Swimming in the most beautiful waterfall in the world
Near LP there is a tropical swimming paradise: the Kuang Si waterfall. Four years ago I went backpacking in Laos; in the meantime, no other waterfall has come close to the title of ‘most beautiful in the world’. Of course, a year later I was in Iguazu, Argentina; grand, powerful and incredibly beautiful, but a dive into Kuang Si is a dive into the paradise of Adam and Eve. There’s really nothing that can top that.
Suus and I get on the moto-bike, the nicest and cheapest option! For about sixty thousand kip, about seven euros, we drive through a landscape that is certainly worth it. We hardly meet anyone and every now and then we have to stop for a large herd of Bantengs crossing the road. Be careful, because it will be difficult to get those buffalos off your windshield if you hit them with a hundred blows.
You will never forget a dip in Kuang Si!
The waterfall still exceeds my wildest dreams. The water is so clear and turquoise blue that you really cannot believe your eyes. Without exaggerating, this is what Suus said: ‘this is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!’. Of course I was a little offended at first, but she’s absolutely right. We swim in all layers of the waterfall, take a thousand photos and eventually even have the realm to ourselves!
On the way back we pass the sanctuary for sun bears, the smallest bear species in the world and the only one found in Southeast Asia. From several walkways we can see them up close; beautiful animals!
You are a Phousi if you don’t go up the mountain
Far beyond the reach of the cooling waterfall, it is sweltering in Luang Prabang. We see that the monks are having a hard time when we visit a number of monasteries. Even their airy orange robes are not made for these temperatures. Yet this city is the highlight while backpacking through Laos. The city is at its most beautiful with a golden sun. So even though it is about forty degrees and it seems almost suicide to lift your feet at all: we climb a bit to the most beautiful viewpoint.
In the middle of Luang Prabang lies a sacred mountain, with a name that is not so strange in writing, but pronounced: Mount Phousi. From the base to the top we walk past monasteries, temples and Buddha relics. But the most beautiful thing is the view. From a golden stupa on the top of the mountain we look out over the green valley in which the city is located: a picture that I cannot compare with anywhere else. The atmosphere of this city is so unique!
Delicious baguettes!
With a wet shirt, as if we had run the marathon, we walk around the city, visit a few more temples and walk over the famous bamboo bridge, over the Nam Kha river. We eat three times a day at a local baguette seller, the ideal addition to the street scene. Thanks to the colonial period, there are many French influences, which means that a La-Vache-Qui-Rit baguette is even an option. You usually drink a fruit shake with that, because in Luang Prabang you can’t have one without the other. Each stall (sometimes as many as 30 in a row) has a stack of baguettes, a bowl of fruit and a blender.
After a walk through the Night Market we say goodbye to Laos in an appropriate manner. My last tip for a unique experience: the Laotian barbecue. For a few euros per person the table is full of meat and vegetables; In a large pan with a kind of inverted colander in the middle, you prepare the food yourself. Fun to do and also very tasty! We eat our fill for next to nothing and unfortunately have to leave again.
To be continued…
We would prefer to backpack through Laos for longer, but our journey continues. If you have more time, you can go to Vang Vieng for the phenomenon of ‘tubing’ on the Nam Song River. In this case you can do a one-way trip to Luang Prabang Vang Vieng by bus in five hours. You can also go to Don Det and the 4000 islands, also called Si Phan Don, in the south of Loas. However, I do recommend flying to Pakse, because the roads are bad and take a very long time.
After backpacking in Laos we are going to do something unique, more about which here: backpacking in the Maldives! Do you want to watch the videos of all our adventures? Click here to check out our Youtube-channel and don’t forget to subscribe!
