Laos Travel Guide

A lot of travelers come looking for the “real Laos”, but few know exactly what that is. For about 80% of the population the “real Laos” is village life, and the best way to really get a feel for how the Lao live is to spend a night or two in a home stay.

A home stay is, as the name suggests, staying with a family in their home, sleeping, eating and living Just as they do. So what can you expect? The details vary from place to place, depending on ethnicity, geography and wealth, but the usual experience is described here.

Life in Laos

Villages are small, dusty/muddy depending on the season, and full of kids. You’ll be billeted with a family, usually with a maximum of two travelers per family. Toilets will be the squat variety, with scoop flush, in a dark hut at the corner of the block. You’ll bathe before dinner, either in a nearby stream or river, or by using a scoop to pour water over yourself from a well, 44-gallon drum or concrete reservoir in your family’s yard. Bathing is usually a public event, hence the sarong. Don’t expect a mirror.

Food will be simple fare, usually two dishes and sticky rice. In our experience it’s almost always been delicious, but prepare yourself for a sticky rice extravaganza  during a five-day circuit through homestay. In southern Laos we ate sticky rice 14 meals out of 15. Even If the food doesn’t appeal, you should eat something or your host will lose face. Dinner is usually served on mats on the floor, so prepare to sit lotus-style or with legs tucked under. Don’t sit on cushions as that’s bad form, and always take off your shoes before entering the house.

Sleeping will probably be under a mosquito net on a mattress on the floor, and might change to ‘waking’ once the cocks start crowing outside your window.

It might not be luxurious but home stay Is very much the ‘real Laos’ and is a thoroughly worthwhile and enjoyable experience. Just remember that for most villagers, dealing with falang tourists is pretty new and they are sensitive to your reactions. Their enthusiasm will remain as long as their guests engage with them and accept them, and their lifestyle, without undue criticism. To get the most out of it take a phrasebook and photos of your family, and don’t forget a torch, flip- flops, a sarong and toilet paper.

It’s hard to think of any other country with a population as laid back as Laos. Baw pen nyăng (no problem) could be the national motto. On the surface at least, nothing seems to faze the Lao and, especially if you’re arriving from neighbouring China or Vietnam, the national psyche is both enchanting and beguiling. Of course, it’s not as simple as ‘people just smiling all the time because they’re happy’, as we heard one traveller describe it. The Lao national character is a complex combination of culture, environment and religion.

To a large degree “Lao-ness” is defined by Buddhism, specifically Theravada Buddhism, which emphasizes the cooling of the human passions. Thus strong emotions are a taboo in Lao society. Kamma (karma), more than devotion, prayer or hard work, is believed to determine one’s lot in life, so the Lao tend not to get too worked up over the future. It’s a trait often perceived by outsiders as a lack of ambition.

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Maybe it’s because everything closes early, even in the capital, that just about everyone in Laos gets up before 6am. Their day might begin with a quick breakfast, at home or from a local noodle seller, before work. In Lao Loum (lowland Lao ) and other Buddhist areas, the morning also  see monk collecting alms, usually from women who hand out rice and vegetables outside their homes in return for a blessing.

School-age kids will walk to a packed classroom housed in a basic building with one or two teachers. Secondary students often board during the week se there are fewer secondary schools and it can be too tar to commute. Almost any family who can afford it pays for their kids to learn English, which is seen as a near-guarantee of future employment.

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At first glance the politics and economy of Laos seem simple enough: a one- party system is controlled by ageing revolutionaries that themselves have me a new elite, who have the power to control the exploitation of the country’s natural resources, can squash any dissent and cooperate enough with foreign donors to keep the aid dollars coming in. But this generalization is just that - the reality is more complex.

Laos is indeed a single party socialist republic, with the only legal political being the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP). President Chummalv Savasone is both the head of state and the head of the LPRP; the I of government is Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh. Both were appointed to their live-year terms by the 115-member National Assembly in June 2006. The National Assembly itself was elected in April 2006 and consists of 113 LPRP members and two non-partisan independents. There was, and remains, no legal opposition.

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Laos is often described as less a nation state than a conglomeration of tribes and languages. And depending on who you talk with, that conglomeration consists of between 49 and 134 different ethnic groups. (The lower figure ii that now used by the government.)

While the tribal groups are many and varied, the Lao traditionally divide themselves into four categories - Lao Lum, Lao Thai, Lao Thoeng and Lao Soung. These classifications loosely reflect the altitudes at which the groups live, and, by implication (not always accurate), their cultural proclivities. To address some of these inaccuracies, the Lao government recently reclassified ethnic groups into three major language families - Austro-Tai, Austro- Asiatic and Sino-Tibetan.
However, many people you meet won’t know which language family they come from, so we’ll stick here with the more commonly understood breakdown.

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