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.

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.

Lao commonly express the notion that “too much work is bad for your brain’ and they often say they feel sorry for people who ‘think too much”. Education in general isn’t highly valued, although this attitude is changing with modernization and greater access to opportunities beyond Laos’s borders. Avoiding any undue psychological stress, however, remains a cultural norm. From the typical Lao perspective, unless an activity - whether work or play - contains an element múan (fun), it will probably lead to stress.

The contrast between the Lao and the Vietnamese is an example of how the Annamite Chain has served as a cultural fault line dividing Indic and Sinitic zones of influence. The French summed it up as: “The Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow.” And while this saying wasn’t meant as a compliment, a good number of French colonialists found the Lao way too seductive to resist, and stayed on.

The Lao have always been quite receptive to outside assistance and foreign investment, since it promotes a certain degree of economic development without demanding a corresponding increase in productivity. The Lao government wants all the trappings of modern technology - the skyscrapers seen on socialist propaganda billboards - without having to give up Lao traditions, including the múan philosophy. The challenge for Laos is to find a balance between cultural preservation and the development of new attitudes that will lead the country towards a measure of self-sufficiency.

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.

Given that about 75% of people live in rural communities, work is usually some form of manual labor. Depending on the season, and the person’s on and gender (women and men have clearly defined task when it comes to farming), work might be planting or harvesting rice or other crops. Unlike neighbouring Vietnam, the Lao usually only harvest one crop of rice i year, meaning there are a couple of busy periods followed by plenty of time when life can seem very laid back.

During these quiet periods, men will fish, hunt and repair the house, while women might gather flora and fauna from the forest, weave fabrics I collect firewood. At these times there’s something wonderfully social and uncorrupted about arriving in a village mid-afternoon, sitting in the front of the local “store” and sharing a lào lao (whisky) or two with the locals, feeling like you’re stealing their time.

Where vices are concerned, lào-lao is the drug of choice for most Lao, particularly in rural areas where average incomes are so low that Beerlao beyond most budgets. Opium is the most high-profile of the other drugs traditionally used - and tolerated - in Laos, though recent crop-clearing has it less available. In cities, yaba (methamphetamine), in particular, is becoming popular among young people.

Because incomes are rock-bottom in Laos - US$100 per month could be considered middle-class - the Lao typically socialize as families, pooling their resources to enjoy a bun wat (temple festival) or picnic at the local waterfall together. The Lao tend to live in extended families, with three or e generations sharing one house or compound, and dine together sitting on mats on the floor with rice and dishes shared by all.

Most Lao don some portion of the traditional garb during ceremonies and orations - the men a phàa bjang (shoulder sash), the women a similar sash, tight - fitting blouse and phàa nung (sarong). In everyday life men wear near but unremarkable shirt-and-trousers combinations. However, it’s still normal for women to wear the phàa nung or sin (sarong). Other ethnicities living Laos - particularly Chinese and Vietnamese women - will wear phàa nung when they visit a government office, or risk having any civic requests denied.

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.

Change seems to come slowly in Laos, but when it does most policies and decisions come from a IO-member Politburo and a 52-member Central Committee - two powerful vestiges of the Soviet-style system adopted after the Pathet Lao takeover in 1975. Their decisions are rubber-stamped by the National Assembly.

Few outside the inner sanctum really understand the political scene, but it’s accepted that the LPRP is loosely split between an older, more conservative guard and younger members pushing for limited reform. Cynics will tell you the infighting is mainly for the control of the lucrative kickbacks available to those who control the rights to Laos’s rich natural resources. Others say the reformers’ primary motivation is to alleviate poverty more quickly by speeding up development. The reality most likely lies somewhere between these two extremes.

Economically, Laos is in an interesting period. After the dark times of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s the economy is growing at a robust 7% per year. However, other numbers don’t look so hot. The World Bank rates Laos as one of the least developed countries in East Asia, with more than 75% of people living on less than US$2 a day. More than three quarters of the population still live as subsistence farmers and gross domestic product was just US$2.9 billion in 2005. Major exports are electricity, garments. timber products and coffee, in that order. In recent years tourism (see p72) has become one of the main earners of foreign income, much of which flows directly into the Dockets of those who need it most.

Foreign aid remains a constant of the Laos economy, as it has been since first the French established a basic infrastructure, followed by e wartime investment by the USA. Soviet and to a lesser extent Vietnamese assistance saw Laos into the 1990s, when the Japanese and Western governments and NGOs started picking up the development tab. Laos’s e is unsurprising when you consider there is little effective taxation and the country is only now, for the first time, developing notable export capacity (in hydropower). Put simply, the money needed for building roads, bridges, schools, hospitals etc didn’t exist at home, so someone else had to e bill, or allow Laos to continue languishing in poverty.

In recent years China has started spending some of its enormous surplus in Laos. Apart from the obvious investment in infrastructure such as roads, dams and plantations, this has two significant effects. First, Chinese aid comes with few strings attached, meaning for example that roads, plantation and dams are built by Chinese companies with little or no concern for local people or environments.

This is in contrast to the usual carrot and stick approach of Western donors, who supply aid in various forms that is dependent on the Lao government improving their systems and getting involved in the development rather than Just sitting back and waiting for the dollars to roll in. Of course, not all Western aid programs are perfect - most are far from it most at least pay some attention to factors like governance and environmental impact.

Second, if one of your largest donors, biggest regional political power and enthusiastic investors is a one-party state just like you, it’s not the sort of role model that will encourage political or economic reform. Not that significant reform appears to be on the Lao government’s agenda anyway, but trying to imitate China won’t help get it there.

The overexcited development of hydroelectric and mining operations accepted to reduce Laos’s reliance on foreign aid to a certain extent Mines, such as the gold and copper operation at Sepon, are beginning to contribute to the government coffers. Dams like Nam Theun 2 will do likewise. Just who benefits from these projects, and how many will feel their negative impacts is debatable. What seems more certain is that while foreign companies extract sizable profits from their operations in Laos, the taxes and concession fees they pay will take a long time to trickle down your average Lao family, and most will stay poor for quite some time to come.

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.

About half the population are ethnic Lao or Lao Loum, and these are clearly the most dominant group. Of the rest, 10% to 20% are tribal Tai, 20% to 30% are Lao Thoeng (‘Upland Lao’ or lower-mountain dwellers, mostly of proto-Malay or Mon-Khmer descent) and 10% to 20% are Lao Soung (‘Highland Lao’, mainly Hmong or Mien tribes who live higher up).

The Lao government has an alternative three-way split, in which the Lao Thai are condensed into the Lao Loum group. This triumvirate is represented on the back of every 1000 kip bill, in national costume, from left to right: Lao Soung, Lao Loum and Lao Thoeng.

Small Tibeto-Burman hill-tribe groups in Laos include the Lisu, Lahu, Lolo, Akha and Phu Noi. They are sometimes classified as Lao Thoeng, but like the Lao Soung they live in the mountains of northern Laos.

Lao Loum
The dominant ethnic group is the Lao Loum (Lowland Lao), who through superior numbers and living conditions - in the fertile plains of the Mekong River valley or lower tributaries of the Mekong - have for centuries dominated the smaller ethnic groups living in Laos. Their language is the national language; their religion, Buddhism, is the national religion; and many of their customs - including the eating of sticky rice and the bfasii ceremony - are interpreted as those of the Lao nation, even though they play no part in the lives of many other ethnic groups.

Lao Loum culture has traditionally consisted of a sedentary, subsistence lifestyle based on wet-rice cultivation. They live in raised homes and, like all Austro-Thais, are Theravada Buddhists who retain strong elements of animist spirit worship.

The distinction between ‘Lao’ and ‘Thai’ is a rather recent historical phenomenon, especially considering that 80% of all those who speak a language recognised as ‘Lao’ reside in northeastern Thailand. Even Lao living in Laos refer idiomatically to different Lao Loum groups as ‘Thai’ for example, Thai Luang Phabang (Lao from Luang Prabang). See also Lifestyle.

LaoThai
Although they’re closely related to the Lao, these Thai subgroups have resisted absorption into mainstream Lao culture and tend to subdivide themselves according to smaller tribal distinctions. Like the Lao Loum they live along river valleys, but the Lao Thai have chosen to reside in upland valleys rather than in the lowlands of the Mekong floodplains.

Depending on their location, they cultivate dry or mountain rice as well as wet, or irrigated, rice. The Lao Thai also mix Theravada Buddhism and animism,. but tend to place more importance on spirit worship than do the Loum.

Generally speaking, the various Lao Thai groups are distinguished from one another by the predominant colour of their clothing, or by general area of habitation ; for example, Thai Dam (Black Thai), Thai Khao (White Thai). Thai Pa ( Forest Thai), Thai Neua (Northern Thai) and so on.

LaosThoeng
The Lao Thoeng (Upland Lao) are a loose affiliation of mostly Austro- Asiatic peoples who live on mid-altitude mountain slopes in northern and southern Laos. The largest group is the Khamu, followed by the Htin, Lamet and small numbers of Laven, Katu, Katann, Alak and other Mon-Khmer Min the south. The Lao Thoeng are also known by the pejorative term Which means ‘slave’ or ‘servant’. This is because they were used as indentured labour by migrating Austro-Thai peoples in earlier centuries Mitt recently by the Lao monarchy. They still often work as labourers for the Lao Soung.

The Lao Thoeng have a much lower standard of living than any of the three groups described here. Most trade between the Lao Thoeng and other Lao is carried out by barter.

The Htin (also called Lawa) and Khamu languages are closely related, and both groups are thought to have been in Laos long before the arrival of the lowland Lao, tribal Thai or Lao Soung. During the Lao New Year celebrations in Luang Prebang the lowland Lao offer a symbolic tribute to the Khamu as their predecessors and as ‘guardians of the land’.

Lao Soung
The Lao soung (High Lao) include the hill tribes who live at the highest altitudes. Off all the peoples of Laos, they are the most recent immigrants, having come from Myanmar, Tibet and southern China within the last 150 years.

The largest group is the Hmong, also called Miao or Meo, who number more than 300,000 in four main subgroups, the White Hmong, Striped Hmong, Red Hmong and Black Hmong (the colours refer to certain clothing details. They are found in the nine provinces of the north plus Bolikhamsai in central Laos.

The  agricultural staples of the Hmong are dry rice and corn raised by slash-and-burn method. They also breed cattle, pigs, water buffalo and chicken, traditionally for barter rather than sale. For years the Hmong’s only cash crop was opium and they grew and manufactured more than any other group in Laos. However, an aggressive eradication programme run by the government (with sunpport from the USA), has eliminated most of the crop. The resulting loss of a tradable commodity has hit many H’mong community very hard. The Hmong are the most numerous in Hua Phan, Xieng Khuang, Luang Prabang and northern Vientiane provinces.

The second-largest group are the Mien (also called Iu Mien, Yao and Man), who live mainly in Luang Nam Tha, Luang Prabang, Bokeo, Udomxai and Phongsali. The Mien, like the Hmong, have traditionally cultivated opium poppies. Replacement crops, including coffee, are taking time to bed in and generate income.

The Mien and Hmong have many ethnic and linguistic similarities, and both groups are predominantly animist. The Hmong are considered more aggressive and warlike than the Mien, however, and as such were perfect CIA-trained special Royal Lao Government forces in the 1960s and early W70s. Large numbers of Hmong-Mien left Laos and fled abroad  after 1975.

Most expatriate Westerners living in Laos are temporary employees of multilateral and bilateral aid organizations. A smaller number are employed by foreign companies involved in mining, petroleum and hydropower.

Lao Loum women gain limited benefits from bilateral inheritance pattern whereby both women and men can inherit land and business ownership. This derives from a matriarchal tradition, where a husband joins the wife’s fan on marriage. Often the youngest daughter and her husband will live with and care for her parents until they die, when they inherit at least some of their land and business.

However, even if a Lao Loum woman inherits her father farmland, she will have only limited control over how it is used. Instead, her husband will have the final say on most major decisions, while she will be responsible for saving enough money to see the family through any crisis.

This fits with the cultural beliefs associated with Lao Buddhism, which commonly teaches that women must be reborn as men before they can attain nirvana, hence a woman’s spiritual status is generally less than that of a man. Still, Lao Loum women enjoy a higher status than women from other ethnic groups, who become part of their husband’s clan on marriage a rarely inherit anything.

Women in Laos face several other hurdles: fewer girls go to school than boys; women are relatively poorly represented in government and other senior positions; and although they make up more than half the workforce, pay is often lower than male equivalents. If a Lao woman divorces, no matter how fair her reasons, it’s very difficult for her to find another husband unless he is older or foreign.

In the cities, however, things are changing as fast as wealth, education and exposure to foreign ideas allows, and in general women in cities are most confident and willing to engage with foreigners than their rural counterparts. Women are pushing into more responsible positions, particularly in foreign-controlled companies.

Theravada doctrine stresses the three principal aspects of existence: dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness, disease), anicca (impennanence, transience of all things) and anatta (nonsubstantiality or nonessentiality or reality - no permanent ‘soul’). Comprehension of anicca reveals that no experience, state of mind, no physical object lasts. Trying to hold on to experience, no states of mind, and object that are constantly changing creates dukkha. Anatta is the understanding that there is no part of the changing world we can point to and say ‘This is me’ or “This is God” or “ this the soul”.

Monks and Nuns
Unlike other religions in which priests, nuns, rabbis, imams etc make a life long commitment to their religious vocation, being a Buddhist monk or nun be a much more transient experience. Socially, every Lao Buddish male is expected to become a khúu-baa (monk) for at least a short period of his life, optimally between the time he finishes school and starts a career of marries. Men or boys under 20 years of age may enter the Shangha (monastic order) as néhn (novices) and this is not unusual since a family earns merit when one of its sons takes robe and bowl. Traditionally the length of time spent in the wat is three months, during the phansăa ( Buddish lent ), which coincides with the rainy season. However, nowadays spend as little as a week or 15 days to accrue merit as monks or novices. There are, of course, some monks who do devote all or most of their lives to the wat.
 

Young Monks

There is no similar hermetic order for nuns, but women may reside in temples as náang sii (lay nún ) with shaved heads and white robes.

Spirit Cults
No matter where you are in Laos the practice of phii (spirit) worship - sometimes called animism - won’t be far away. Phii worship pro-dates Buddhism and despite being officially banned it remains the dominant non-Buddhist belief system. But for most Lao it is not a matter of Buddhism or spirit worship. Instead established Buddhist beliefs coexist peacefully with respect for the phii that are believed to inhabit natural objects.

An obvious example of this coexistence is the ‘spirit house’, which you’ll see in or outside almost every home. Spirit houses are often ornately decorated miniature temples, built as a home for the local spirit. Residents must share their space with the spirit and go to great lengths to keep it happy, offering enough incense and food that the spirit won’t make trouble for them.

In Vientiane you can see Buddhism and spirit worship side-by-side at Wat Si Muang. The central image at the temple is not a Buddha figure but the lák méuang (city pillar), in which the guardian spirit for the city is believed to reside. Many local residents make daily offerings before the pillar while at the same time praying to a Buddha figure. A form of phii worship you might actually partake in is the baasii ceremony.

Outside the Mekong River valley, the phii cult is particularly strong among the tribal Thai, especially the Thai Dam, who pay special attention to a class of phii called then. The then are earth spirits that preside not only over the plants and soil, but over entire districts as well. The Thai Dam also believe in the 32 khwăn ( guardian spirits). Măw ( guardian spirits). Măw ( master / shaman ), who are especially trained in the propitiation and exorcism of spirits, preside at important Thai Dam festivals and ceremonies. It is possible to see some of the spiritual beliefs and taboos in action by staying in a Katang village during a trek in the forest of Dong Phu Vieng NPA

The Hmong -Mien tribes also practice animism, plus ancestral worship. Some Hmong groups recognise a pre-eminent spirit that presides over all the earth spirits others do not. The Akha, Lisa and other Tibeto-Burman groups mix animism and ancestor cults.

Lao’s relatively small and poor population, combined with a turbulent recent history, also goes some way toward explaining the absence of strong tradition of contemporary art. This is slowly changing, and in Vientiane and Luang Prabang modern art in a variety of media is finding its way into galleries and stores.

Laos Dancers

Weaving is the one art form that is found almost everywhere has distinct styles that vary by place and tribal group. It s also the single most accessible art the traveler can buy, often from the artist herself – weavers are almost always women.

Architecture
As with all other artistic endeavor, for centuries the best architects in the land have focused their attention on Buddhist temples . The results are most impressive in Luang Prabang.

However, it’s not only in temples that Laos has its own peculiar architectural traditions. The that (stupa) found in Laos are different to those found anywhere else in the Buddhist world. Stupas are essentially monuments built on top of a reliquary which itself was built to hold a relic of the Buddha - commonly a hair or fragment of bone. Across Asia they come in varying shapes and sizes, ranging from the multi-level tapered pagodas found in Vietnam to the buxom brick monoliths of Sri Lanka. Laos has its own unique style combining hard edges and comely curves. The most famous of all Lao stupa is the golden Pha That Luang in Vientiane, the national symbol.

Traditional housing in Laos, whether in the river valleys or in the mountains, consists of simple wooden or bamboo-thatch structures with lea grass roofing. Among lowland Lao, houses are raised on stilts to avoid flooding during the monsoons and allow room to store rice underneath, w the highlanders typically build directly on the ground. The most attractive lowland Lao houses often have a starburst pattern in the architraves, the these are increasingly difficult to find.

Colonial architecture in urban Laos combined the classic French provincial style - thick-walled buildings with shuttered windows and pitched tile roofs with balconies and ventilation to promote air circulation in the stifling Southeast Asian climate. Although many of these structures were torn down or allowed to decay following independence from France, today they are much in demand, especially by foreigners. Luang Prabang and Vienn both boast several lovingly restored buildings from this era. By contra the Mekong River towns of Tha Khaek, Savannakhet and Pakse Frenc buildings are decaying at a disturbing rate.

Buildings erected in post-Revolution Laos followed the socialist realism school that was enforced in the Soviet Union, Vietnam and China. Straight lines, sharp angles and an almost total lack of ornamentation were the norm. More recently, a trend towards integrating classic Lao architectural motifs with modern functions has taken hold. Prime examples of this inc Vientiane’s National Assembly and the Luang Prabang airport, both of which were designed by Havana- and Moscow-trained architect Hongkad Souvannavong. Other design characteristics, such as those represented by the Siam Commercial Bank on Th Lan Xang in Vientiane, seek to gracefully reincorporate French colonial features ignored for the last half-century.

Sculpture
Of all the traditional Lao arts, perhaps most impressive is the Buddhist sculpture of the period from the 16th to 18th centuries, the heyday of the kingdom of Lan Xang. Sculptural media usually included bronze, stone or wood and the subject was invariably the Lord Buddha or figures associated with the Jataka (stla-dok, stories of the Buddha’s past lives). Like other Buddhist sculptors. The Lao artisans emphasized the features thought to be peculiar to the historical curled hair.

Two types of standing Buddha image are distinctive to Laos. The first is “the calling for rain” posture, which depicts the Buddha standing with hands held rigidly at his side, fingers pointing towards the ground. This posture is rarely seen in other Southeast Asian Buddhist art traditions. The slightly rounded “boneless” look of the image recalls Thailand’s Sukhothai style, and the way the lower robe is sculpted over the hips looks vaguely Khmer. But the flat, slab like earlobes, arched eyebrows and aquiline nose are uniquely Lao. The bottom of the figure’s robe curls upward on both sides in a perfectly symmetrical fashion that is also unique and innovative.

The other original Lao image type is the “Contemplating the Bodhi Tree” Buddha. The Bodhi tree “ Tree of Enlightenment”, refer to the large banyan tree that the historical Buddha purported was sitting beneath when he attained enlightenment in Bodhgaya, India, in the 6th century BC. In this image the Buddha is standing in much the same way as in the “ Calling for the rain” pose, except that his hands are crossed at the wrists in the front of his body. The finest examples of the Lao sculpture are found in Vientiane’s Haw Pha kaeo and Wat Si Saket and in Luang Prabang’s Royal Palace

Handicrafts
Mats and baskets woven of various kinds of straw, rattan and reed common and are becoming a small but important export. You’ll still minority groups actually wearing some of these baskets, affirming I until recently most Lao handicrafts were useful as well as ornamental. In villages it’s possible to buy direct from the weaver, though you might need to commission your basket in advance and allow at least a day for the jop to be finished. Or you could weave it yourself, under instruction from experts for a small fee. Among the best baskets and mats are those w by the Htin (Lao Thoeng).

Among the Hmong and Mien hill tribes, silversmithing plays an important in “portable wealth” and inheritances. In years past the main source of silver was French coins, which were either melted down or fitted straight into the jewellery of choice. In northern villages it’s not unusual to see newer coins worn in elaborate head dress.

The lowland Lao also have a long tradition of silversmithing and goldsmithing. While these arts have been in decline for quite a while now. You can still see plenty of jewellers working over flames in markets around the country. If you’re after something special head to Luang Prabang, where Thithpeng Maniphone has gone from Grafting silverware for Luang Prabang royalty to filling commissions for the Thai royal family.

Paper handcrafted from săa (the bark of a mulberry tree) is common in northwestern Laos, and is available in Vientiane and Luang Prabang .Environmentally friendly săa is a renewable paper resource that needs little processing compared with wood pulp.

Music and Dance
Lao classical music was originally developed as court music for royal ceremonies and classical dance-drama during the 19th-century reign of Vientiane’s Chao Anou, who had been educated in the Siamese court in Bangkok. The standard ensemble for this genre is the sep nyai and consist of khăng wóng ( a set of tuned gongs ) the ranyâat (a xylophone-like instrument), the khui (bamboo flute ) and the pii (a double-reed wind instrument similar to the oboe ).

The practice of classical Lao music and drama has been in decline for some time- 40 years of intermittent war and revolution has simply made this kind entertainment a low priority among most Lao. Generally, the only time you will hear this type of music is during the occasional public performance of the Pha lakPha Lam, a dance -drama based on the Hindu Ramayana epic.

Not so with Lao folk and pop, which have always stayed close to the people The principal instrument in folk, and to a lesser extent in pop, is the Kháen (common French spelling: khene ), a wind instrument that is devised of a double row of bamboo-like reeds fitted into a hardwood sound box and made air – tight with beeswax. The rows can be as few as four or as many as eight courses (for a total of 16 pipes), and the instrument can vary in length l80 cm to about 2m. An adept player can produce a churning, calliope – like dance music.

When the Kháen is playing you’ll often see people dancing the lám wóng ( circle performance) , easily the most popular folk dance in Laos. Put simply, in the lám wóng couple, and one danced by the whole crowd. Watch for a few minutes and you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Măw Lám
The Lao folk idiom also has its own musical theatre, based on the măw lám tradition. Măw Lám is difficult to translate but roughly means “master of verse”. Led by one or more vocalists, performances always feature a witty, topical combination of talking and singing that ranges across themes as diverse as politics and sex. Very colloquial, even bawdy, language is employed. This is one art form that has always bypassed government censors and it continue to provide an important outlet for grass-roots expression.

Diverse other instruments, including electric guitar, electric bass and drums may supplement the basic Kháen / vocalist ensemble. Versions that appear on Lao national television are usually much watered down to suit ‘national development’

There are several different types of măw lám, depending on the number of the singers and the region the style hails from. Măw lám khu (couple măw lám ), for example, features a man and woman who engage in flirtation and verbal repartee. Măw lám jot (duelling măw lám ) has two performer of the same gender who ‘duel’ by answering questions or finishing an incomplete story issued as a challenge - not unlike free-style rap.

Northern Lao Kháen – based folk music is usually referred to as kháp rather than lám. Authentic live măw lám can be heard at temple fairs and on Lao radio. CD can be purchase in larger towns and cities.

Literature
Of all the classical Lao literature, Pha Lak Pha Lam, the Lao version of the Indian, epic the Ramayana, is the most pervasive and influential in the culture. The Indian source first came to Laos with the Hindu Khmer as stone reliefs at Wat Phu Champasak other Angkor - period temples. Oral and written versions may also have been available; eventually, though the Lao developed their own version of the epic, which differs greatly both from the original and from Thailand’s Ramakian.

Of the 547 Jataka tales in the Pali Tipitaka (tripartite Buddhist canon each chronicling a different past life of the Buddha - most appear in Laos almost word-for-word as they were first written down in Sri Lanta. A group of 50 ‘extra’ or apocryphal stories - based on Lao-Thai folk tales of the time - were added by Pali scholars in Luang Prabang between 300 and 400 years ago. Laos’s most popular Jataka is an old Pali original known as the Mahajati or Mahavessandara (Lao: Pha Wet), the story of the Buddha’s penultimate life. Interior murals in the sim of many Lao wat typically depict this Jataka as well as others.

Contemporary literature has been hampered by decades of war and communist rule. Only in 1999 was the first collection of contemporary Lao fiction. Ounthine Bounyavong’s Mother’s Beloved: Stories from Laos, published in a bilingual Lao and English edition.

Lao has a few traditional sports sand these are as often an excuse for betting as thay are means of exercise. Kátâw and múay láo (Lao boxing) certainly do involve exercise - and these are taken increasingly seriously as international competition rases their profiles. Cockfighting, however, does not. Cockfighting follow the usual rules except that in Laos the cocks are not fitted with blades so often survive the bout. If you want to watch or not, keep your eyes and ears open, practically on Sunday and public holidays.

In ethnic Thai areas you might find the more off-beat sport of beetle fighting. These bouts involve notoriously fractious rhinoceros beetles squaring off while a crowd, usually more vociferous after liberal helping of lào – láo bets on the result. The beetles hiss and attack, lifting each other with their horns, until one decides it no longer wants to be part of this ‘entertainment’ and runs. If you bet on the runner, you lose. Beetle bouts are limited to the wet season.

Kids in Laos are likely to be seen chasing around a football (or at least something that resembles a football). Opportunities for pursuing football professionally are few, limited bay an almost complete lack of quality coaching, pitches, and youth leagues where players can get experience of proper competition. Laos does, however, compete in various regional tournaments, and on occasion you can see inter–provincial matches at the National-Stadium in Vientiane or modest stadias in provincial capitals.