>>2829684
>what is Laos like?
nice

>>2829688
Dare to elaborate? It looks like Belarus of Asia for a person who's never been there

>>2829690
>Dare to elaborate?
No.

I don't know

>>2829684
I get the feeling that a lot of shady chinese shit happens in the north of Laos with gambling and cunny

>>2829694
>I get the feeling that a lot of shady chinese shit happens in the north of Laos with gambling and cunny
Sex prest begone in the name of Christ

>>2829702
I'm with you, brother. These chinese degen types don't believe in Christ, though. They're some of the more amoral people on the planet.
I'm telling you, man, chang is up to some horrendous shit in Northern Laos.

>>2829684
Britpest told me it’s easy to find “that” when I’m there. Keeping it in my back pocket

>>2829703
They don't have Christ in their conscience. Their immortality is bottomless. When they're bad, they're horrendous.

>>2829710
Enjoy the flames of hell, pedo. You will feel terror in your last moments on earth

>>2829684
It's nice, kinda what I expected Thailand to be, very laid back atmosphere. Obviously much less developed than most of SEA. I found Vang Vieng to be bit of a shithole, although it has decent amount of activities nearby. Vientiane is interesting to explore but definitely not a nice place in any sense. I liked Luang Prabang the most and doing sunset cruise along Mekong was pleasant. There are also lot of shady places selling variety of drugs, which I feel like attracts a lot of weird type of tourists (unemployed, finding themselves), they are also highly illegal and you'll get shaken down for your money if you carry anything on you outside of those places that sell it (heard multiple first hand stories).

>>2829684
It's a communist shithole. Do not go there. They have no infrastructure, no functional government, no emergecy response, no medical care, no regulations of any kind (they serve you methanol with impunity), so no criminal justice either, because no media and therfefore no accountability. If you go there, your lifespan automatically drops by decades. The only reason to go is if you need to off your spouse, because they will never investigate that either and you will get away with it scot free.

It's also a good place if you need to run some international criminal empire (yes, the Chinese have discovered this as well as Thai drug dealers--there are a bunch of them right now with massive mansions there in Vientiane).

>>2829734
>It's a communist shithole.
>They have no infrastructure, no functional government, no emergecy response, no medical care, no regulations of any kind (they serve you methanol with impunity), so no criminal justice either, because no media and therfefore no accountability.
That sounds pretty capitalist to me

>>2829734
>They have no infrastructure
Only country in the region with high speed rail

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I liked this hotel, despite the smells of the lagoon
>>2829744
The truth is, Laos is a very high-trust society which rarely needs policing. Even the drunk scooter crashes (I saw about six in my 60 days there) never involve the police. It definitely has a functional government with plenty of self-important bureaucrats ensuring social services exist for the population.

The Chinese refuse to fund road repairs for damage caused by their relentless heavy truck traffic, and the bad roads diminish speeding, though many guys beat the shit out of their modified pickup trucks by going at high speed, kicking up clouds of dust so thick visibility goes to zero at times, and drivers are forced to pull over and wait for the dust to settle or drift away.

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I'm transcribing my Laos journal right now. Got sick multiple times with long-running gut illnesses from things I ate or water I drank in rural Laos. The food items were exposed to road dust next to a busy highway. I bought a sausage and it was put in a plastic bag without being grilled by a lazy female shopkeeper. There are no baht vending machines dispensing purified water, and chlorine tablets don't remove contaminants.

Kids are very friendly, but the adults can be suspicious as to why a foreigner would be Pied Pipering around their village.

If someone doesn't want to cook you anything in Laos, despite having a restaurant setup, don't insist. It takes a long time to build up a charcoal fire hot enough to cook stir-fry. In most of the country, noodle soup shops outnumber Thai style stir-fry shops 10 to 1.

Yes, I crossed that last bridge with my luggage. Motorcycles kept breaking through, that's why it's so fucked-up. You can't tell an Asian motorcycle rider anything. They're gonna do whatever they want, whenever they want to.

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In the afternoon's 25 C warmth, this same village was swarming with activity.

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I spent a few days in a remote village, the seat of Meung district, near the border with Myanmar in the Golden Triangle region. There was a big ad for the Golden Triangle SEZ in the village.

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Don't expect functional WiFi at any Lao guesthouse. The wooden furniture is excellent, however. Not like Thailand, where everything is plastic and metal.

Total expense for eight weeks in Laos, including eVisa: $1115 ($19.90 per day)

Lodging was 45.6% of total at $8.66 per day.
Food was 37.6% of total at $7.14 per day.
Transport for 978 km cost me $67.50.
$40 was spent on Beerlao.
$42 was spent on mongering.

>>2829760
>no infrastructure
Thank you for illustrating the point. Roads and bridges were better 50 years ago, before the communist cave monkeys took over.

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This

>>2829784
In other words, it's hot as hell. No beaches or anything either.

>>2829780
how regular were your studying escapades?

>>2829790
Three times in one day, that's it
>>2829781
>bridges were better in 1975
In the middle of a bombing campaign? Doubt.
>>2829788
Winter climate in northern Laos is amazingly mild, rainless and sunny. By March it starts getting really hot.

>>2829684
Yet Another Asian nation

>>2829690
it is sparse and empty. but very cool. luang prabang is very cool. not a big place. vientiane is like someone made a small phnom penh, or was when i was last there. maybe things have changed with the chinese trains now. there is no real point in describing things in laos. it looks like vietnam from vietnam war movies made, small villages, small towns, people using skinny boats.

>>2830027
The high speed train stops several km outside of Vientiane. Through service to Bangkok is years, maybe decades in coming. Singapore to China high speed rail? 2085.

>>2830397
>Through service to Bangkok is years, maybe decades in coming
why do you say that? construction is almost done

>>2830406
The section from Bangkok to Khorat is partially complete. The section from Khorat to Vientiane is barely even started.

>>2830397
>Through service to Bangkok is years, maybe decades in coming
They did just complete the other slow direct Vientiane - Bangkok train though
>Singapore to China high speed rail? 2085
It will take that long for them to pull their heads out of their ass and just complete the direct Malaysia - Singapore connection

>>2830418
oh, they should have hired a chinese construction company

>>2829759
>Laos is a very high-trust society
lol nope
there is no such thing

>>2830467
People leave their keys in their motorbikes everywhere you look. Meanwhile in 98% white Poland, every bicycle is locked up with a heavy-duty lock. Not a high trust society.

>>2829759
>relentless heavy truck traffic
That is the responsibility of the government to build roads and regulate traffic. And if their roads can't handle it, they should not be handing out mining concessions. But of course they dont' care because they get their kick back out of it. You are talking about the most corrupt clowns in the world. They make places like Nigeria look like models of efficiency and good governance.

>>2829724
is it illegal to be intoxicated by an illegal drug?
for example you're high on something but not in possession of anything, can you get in trouble?

>>2831324
How would anyone be able to tell that you're intoxicated? Are you shoving people and yelling at them?

>>2831278
The Lao PDR government doesn't have a choice in the matter. Chinese take payment for their debt in Lao natural resources, not in worthless devalued kip.

>>2829712
there a way to get them to sell that immortality bruh ?

>>2829694
I've heard there's a lot of kidnapped slaves there, laos, thai, chinese, indian, white etc.

>>2831823
All those mining contracts are handed out to small Chinese companies by corrupt officials. Whoever is in power hands them out like candy to whoever will line his pocket. If the Chinese state owned companies were going to operate in Laos you would see vast mining operations with modern equipment. But they are not dumb enough to do that in a country where is no adequate infrastructure. It's only the small players in Laos.

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>>2831861
The coal mine outside Hongsa in Xayaboury is pretty spectacular. Overall, Hongsa was a nice village.

>>2829744
kek, i know right
sounds like a libertarian "paradise"

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I paid 100K for grilled goat meat at a Lao restaurant. It took me two hours to chew through the whole pile.

>>2831872
The coal mine is a Thai project for a coal-fired power plant on the same site for electricity exported to Thailand.

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You can see remnants of the French influence in Laos today

>>2831324
I don't think you will have a problem as long as you consume whatever you buy at the place that sells it. But I wouldn't roam around at night visibly under the influence too much, as you might just walk into a wrong place that cops don't like. I've heard some bars have undercover cop inside that tips off the other cops if someone walks out with stuff on them, but they don't bust people inside the bars as I presume they take a cut for themselves. Most of this that I've seen happens in Vang Vieng.

>>2832045
Do not even compare this shithole country to France.

>>2832066
Your feelings don't change the fact that Indochina was once French territory.

>>2832078
They were not around long enough to make much of a difference. The Spaniards were in the Philippines for hundreds of years. The French were in Laos for little more than 50.

>>2832045
After reading this, I want to ask one thing
Do 4Chan users even enjoy things?
95% of the shit you're wrote is you complaining complaning complaining, Can you name one country where you enjoyed the majority of the experience?

>>2832675
The problem is you. You're autistic, sub 58 IQ and can't even read at a 2nd grade level.
Please go back to /r9k/ and post frogs.

>>2832681
LMAFOOOOOOO

Look at you melting over a single comment

Good luck in life, Anon, you'll need a lot of it

>>2832675
>one country
nta but I hear Malawi is awesome

>>2832675
What does it matter if I enjoyed the country or not? I travel to experience the country, not to pleasure myself.

>>2833699
I hope you did not get any pleasure out of the experience either

>>2832675
You've hit the nail on the head. It's the biggest reason most lurk and eventually drift from here is while it's a place where people are more honest and different, it's still mainly just nonsense bullshit young men complaining like bitches.

>>2832675
How's your post related here? I thought the OC image was pretty interesting. Looks like French military barrack style.
>>2833756
There's loads of interesting posts and posters here. It's just a little slow. Of course there's kids and larpers punctuating decent posts, but it's generally a comfy part of 4chan imo.

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This delicious fish curry was stewed up every Thursday at a tiny shop along one of Xayaboury's main roads, along with several other dishes. A crowd gathered to buy take-home bags.

>>2833714
>I hope
You live in a world of fantasy "hopes"
I live in the real world

>>2833869
When is your next trip? I know a few hellholes you can go experience.

>>2833756
It’s half that and half anons pretending they’ve been somewhere when they haven’t and then lying about how much money they have.

>>2829788
How about rivers and lakes? Or is it all just leech infested?

>>2833902
Erosion is pretty bad in parts of Laos - the country is basically one huge pile of silt. Kids still play in the creeks on hot days, but they aren't particularly clean.
>>2833895
India, 42 days out

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Thailand's natural beauty is much better preserved than Laos, where most people still rely on the land for a living.

>>2833902
In rainy season, the rivers all turn brown (almost all) and double, triple or more in volume. In the dry season, they run clear, even the Mekong. There are beaches in the Mekong, especially in southern Laos (4,000 islands) with plenty of sand. The river is full of sand because of erosion. As for leeches I'm guessing they are similar to anywhere else. American rivers and creeks are also full of leeches. If you are in them enough, you will encounter them. The Nam Ngum reservoir has a few "beaches" I think but these are more rocky. It doesn't get much tourism but they built a casino out there recently.

>>2833941
>pile of silt.
Actually, the silt washes downstream into Cambodia, where a lot of it ends up in the Tonle Sap, making Cambodia very fertile and how Angkor was able to emerge as a civilization. The rest goes down into the Mekong Delta, so Laos loses all its silt to the downstream countries. It was never as productive agriculturally for this reason. That, coupled with being landlocked, kept it at a disadvantage.

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>>2833947
Extracting sand from the Mekong for construction purposes is a big income generator for the riverside villages. The locals do it the old-fashioned way, filling up boats at sandbars, beaching them, then shoveling them out.

I stayed at a spotlessly clean $6/night hostel in an outlying neighborhood of Vientiane that offered this kickass free breakfast.

>>2829684
It's a kinda laosy place

>>2829684
I only know about it because of King of the hill

I did Kunming to Vientiane by high speed train and it was pretty kino views.

Border crossing filled with absolute scam money changers/taxis and I just walked past entire line and they let me through lol.

First city Boten is a basically "everything illegal in china is legal here" the city. Almost feels like Pattaya.

Second place I went to was Luang prabang. Very chill, kino place could see myself just chilling here for a month.

Third was Vang vieng. Meme bagbacker place where they had printed menus with every possible drug in some bars. Loads of normie tourist stuff to do.

Last was Vang vieng before flying back to singapore. Boring shithole desu.

>>2835229
Did you meant Vientiane in your last paragraph?
I also thought about taking this high-speed train. Is it coursing often so getting out on random stops in Laos feasible to then catch the next train? Are Chinese cities and places in southern china any nice? I am interested in such things like Taoism or buddhism

>>2835232
Yeah sorry I ment Vientiane for the last one. The trains are very easy to get and run every hour or so.

As for the China side it is very nice. I took the train from Kunming to Mohan then walked across the border and continued with the train Boten - LP next day. You can buy a direct but it gets fully booked all the time.

On the China side you have places like Yuxi, Pu'er and Xishuangbanna that are very beautiful but not super easy if you dont speak a bit of Mandarin.

>>2835232
>then catch the next train?
Don't count on doing it on the same day, but you can go on the next day. Buying train tickets in Laos is a pain in the ass. It's not like buying tickets in Japan or something.

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>>2835107
I'm obsessed with KotH and something I think about sometimes is that it's probably the reason a couple dozen million people know Laos exists. Laotian Americans are a pretty niche ethnic group and Texas happened to get a bunch of them because that's where refugee resettlement agencies decided they'd go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Americans
>only 245,000 in a nation of 330 million

>>2835235
Much higher standard of urban development in Yunnan than in northern Laos. Travel by road and you see the real Laos, which is a very dirty place. The train offers a sanitized version of the country.
>>2835850
Laos is one of the countries Trump restricted entry visas to.

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The five main categories of noise in Laos
>Roosters
>Dogs
>Motorbikes
>Semi trucks
>Party speakers
The villagers don't like quiet, they like noise and activity.

>>2835898
Can you feel the plastic chair underneath you as you imagine these sounds?

>>2835897
Renting a bike and just driving around LP/Vang vieng was enough for me. Why would I ever use shitty SEA roads when China has built great high speed trains in the country

>>2835844

I just used 12go it was a bit more expensive then what the locals pay but the country is already so cheap it doesnt really matter

>>2835962
>use shitty SEA roads
Travels on Toast is doing it now with a tuktuk trip through northern Laos. Those are the real travelers.

>>2829684
Lousy

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>>2835949
That buffalo meat was chewy as can be. Served at a little eatery in the market of Paklai, Xayaboury
Pretty sure the chair was wooden. Beautiful wooden furniture is very common in Laos. Houses are built of wood too, not of cinderblocks like other Third World shitholes.
>>2835962
There are only nine stops along the railway route heading north from Vientiane. That's a very, very small cross-section of the country, and it is also the most heavily visited.

You have to be a skilled and patient motorbike rider to handle the back roads of Laos with their ruts hidden under drifts of loose road dust. And in town, drunk scooter riding means frequent crashes at intersections during evening hours.
>12go
I've seen angry reviews from customers who claim their 12go train tickets were not honored by LCR.

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I got kinda mad when the lady charged me 80,000 kip ($3.50 USD) for the stir-fry ramen dish in the last post. No prices on the menu, of course.

The restaurant in picrel charged 35,000 for a similar plate of delicious greasy noodleslop in the same town. Note the wooden chairs.

Praise, Champusak, Tat Lo, and 10 000 Islands. Cannot recommend this as a loop enough. Beyond chilled out.

My gf is from Laos and we live together in Bangkok, so I've visited Laos like 5 or 6 times. Luang Prabang, Vangviang, and Vientiane are decent but the rest of the country is a severely under-developed communist shithole. I know Laos got dealt a bad hand over the past half century but gotdamn.
I love my gf but I dread visiting her country. She recently got denied entry at the Bangkok airport after our vacation in Japan. I'm not sure what our relationship will look like if she can't come back to Thailand.

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>>2836181
>My gf is from Laos and we live together in Bangkok

Is she brown?

>She recently got denied entry at the Bangkok airport after our vacation in Japan

lmao why ? Don't get too attached to these types. They're just using you as an escape ticket

>>2836202
>lmao why ? Don't get too attached to these types. They're just using you as an escape ticket
Too many border runs. She's been renewing her tourist visa every 1-2 months through the Cambodia and Lao borders since 2022. Thai immigration officers are always more strict with visa abusers that arrive through the airport. She got away with paying 1000 baht last year when she flew in to DMK with me but no luck this time at BKK. I should've bought my gf a flight from Tokyo to Vientiane and then she could've bussed it to Bangkok but I fucked up.

It's too late for me to fight the attachment. :) She's beautiful, funny, submissive, and cooks/cleans for me everyday.

>>2836207
>She's beautiful, funny, submissive, and cooks/cleans for me everyday.

There's literally millions of them in Bangkok. You're wasting your time and if you ever wife her there's a high chance she'll show her real self and fuck your life up.

>>2836208
Yeah it's something to think about. I'm early retired in my late 30s. Sometimes I think I'm gonna fuck up a good situation if I decide to bring her to America and start a family.

Laos is comfy af. Only problem is they still have unexploded ordinances everywhere from the Vietnam War. Fat mutts won't give them the schematics to safely defuse the bombs.

>>2836209
don't do it. parasites the lot of them. The sex and companionship is great, but so are whores and a pet dog. If you also cannot keep your own house clean and cook a half decent meal yourself then I do not know what to say.

>>2836209
>if I decide to bring her to America and start a family.

Stop bringing these 3rrd world monkeys into the country fucking hell. Its all they want and you clowns keep doing it.
I fucked some thai girl multiple times while on vacation in BKK once and she said she was going to go to the US on some special nanny visa. We shared instagrams. Fast forward about 2 months, later she was in the US marrying some skinny white guy and how she's living there. Not even 180 days before i was digging out her insides with my cock and sucking my penis. They just see you as an ATM and free ticket to 1st world countries. Grow up man

>>2836216
I went to Xayaboury province, the one part of Laos least affected by the civil war. What they want you to forget is that the Lao king supported the bombing of his own country by a foreign power to kill rebels, and that the bombers were launched from Thailand. The US was merely the big dumb buffalo drawn into the regional conflict.

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These dust-ridden roads are a lot more treacherous than they look for a motorbike

Last monsoon's ruts are rock hard under a thick layer of fine dust.

>>2835962
>I just used 12go it was a bit more expensive
The issue isn't the cost, it's that the train company only sells tickets 3 days ahead and there's not that many daily trains, so you could get stuck somewhere for an extra day or end up on a bus on Laos shitty roads

>>2836291
You disgusting scumbag.

>>2836326
>the Lao king supported
it's not like he had a choice. the US was running ($$$) the country in those days

>>2836417
Calm down, Bounseng Keo

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Drinking Beerlao on a nightly basis is the duty of all visitors to the Lao PDR

>>2837223
It sounds like a lonely life, anon.

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>>2837237
The few people who do speak English are willing to chat at length with a foreigner.

>>2837642
why dont you just learn the language?

>>2837810
I did speak some Lao, but struggled with some words. Ngeun (mnnghyuun) was one which I failed to pronounce correctly dozens of times in a row, but still managed to be understood because Laotians are a very patient people who are not given to rudeness or sharp words even when they don't like you.
>>2837642
BTW the security guard (yes, wearing shorts) is sitting on the bench outside because a small plane had just landed on the tarmac.

Laos made the news again for killing tourists by letting giant hornets build a nest next to a zipline, kek

https://www.yahoo.com/news/article/father-and-son-die-after-suspected-asian-giant-hornets-sting-them-over-100-times-185816664.html

>>2837872
Are you missing it already?

>>2837893
I keep telling you guys that if you go to that communist hellhole your life expectancy drops by forty years or more. If they're not killing you with giant hornets, it'll be methanol or some other poison. And no, there is no hospital nearby to help you deal with the incredible pain of 100 hornet stings before you die.

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>>2837948
It's not a hellhole, it's merely primitive, so you must use common sense - something that sheltered westerners accustomed to idiot proofed societies have a severe lack of.

Everything is smaller in Laos, including the people. A Lao city would be a mid-sized town in other countries. A Lao hospital would be a clinic in other countries.
>>2837929
I miss the guesthouses. Not so much the meagre selection of food in the villages, the heavy trucks crashing over ruined roads and stirring up thick clouds of dust, and the heavily exploited countryside with hardly any birds. Crossing into Thailand's Chiang Rai province was amazing, because suddenly there were wild birds EVERYWHERE. One could clearly see how Thais make efforts to preserve natural habitats all across their countryside, unlike Laotians who don't seem to give a single shit about nature.

>>2836291
You were sucking your own penis?

Interesting hobby anon.

>>2838029
>, unlike Laotians who don't seem to give a single shit about nature.
they eat their nature. you just said how poor they are. literally they do not spare anything. even the tiniest minnows are taken out of the streams on a nightly basis, not giving the fish any chance at all of reproduction. trees likewise have to be chopped up for firewood, because the communist retards can't figure out how to supply gas or electricity. this worked fine 200 years ago when there were hardly any people but today you can see the effects of it.

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>>2838029
And it's mostly the country "Laotians" (they are actually Mon-Khmer minorities--these are the same people who took over the country) who will kill anything and eat it, even rare lemurs and monkeys. I saw a video with some bitch who had killed a red-shanked langur (a beautiful endangered species) and was trying to sell it on the road for no more than the cost of a small pig. That's how fucking retarded they are.

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>>2838063
Food-scarce villages will refuse to cook food for a foreign tourist, BTW. I experienced multiple refusals to prepare food at various places in Thongmixay district.
>they eat their nature
Even the squirrels living at the Buddha statue are so absurdly human-averse in Laos. He didn't see me sitting on a bench in the dusk until I said something, then he made a panic noise and scampered out of sight. I mentioned this to a tour guide based in Luang Prabang who was in Xayaboury updating his motorbike registration, and he said the same thing. "We hunt animals for food." Most of the forested slopes in Xayaboury province were monoculture tree farms. Even the rural roads going into the back of beyond had steady motorbike and tractor cart traffic, people piled onto every vehicle. I've seen ten people on a single tractor cart and trailer before. The ones with the extra long steering handles and no back wheel on the motor unit are based. Others look more like cars and are built in Laos from Chinese-imported parts. They are not required to have motor vehicle plates and run full throttle at 30 km/h or so.

>>2838064
Are you sure she killed it? Chances are she harvested it as roadkill.

Not like the basedcuck cottage people here on the county highway in Colorado who leave a deer rotting on the roadside in their front yard with magpies pecking at holes in its side. Surely one of you could've butchered it up after the collision, or at least hauled it off 3 miles to the bone dump on the edge of the national forest. But no, these white trash rentoids left the carcass laying 50 yards away from their cottage and right next to the end of their driveway. For two fucking weeks.

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There is a lot of ethnic diversity and intermarriage going on in Laos, which keeps their genetics diverse. Their way of interacting with strangers is different from other parts of the region. Dogs can be very aggressive in Laos, and I've encountered entire packs who guarded a gas station to swarm me while walking along a public highway nearby. A stout stick from the dusty roadside ensured they wouldn't do shit. I was hoping they would at least try to close in for a bite, but they didn't come within a few meters. Of course I'd thrown some gravel at them earlier. Fucking hate having to grab at road dirt to chase off dogs, but that's primitive living for you. Get some dirt bacteria under your fingernails, always wash your hands with plain water afterwards to ensure only microtraces of local environmental bacteria make it onto the food you are eating with your hands. (If you picked up a turd instead of a rock in the dark, consider also using soap.)

Xienghom (good luck with the awful Romanized names in Lao PDR) had a great public park with a hilltop Buddha. It wasn't a friendly place for a foreigner, though on my last evening in the village I found a back-street restaurant serving food much more affordable than the ripoff places along the highway. Ate breakfast with the owner's kids, then boarded the van on to Khop and Paklai. Anarchist armed groups smuggling drugs have opened fire on Lao PDR border patrol here. There was a police checkpoint on one road near a three-way intersection just across the bridge from Paklai village, but they didn't stop me as a pedestrian taking a walk along the road (it was absolute shit and full of traffic and no place to be on foot). The village was friendly and hospitable.

>>2838029
>merely primitive, so you must use common sense - something that sheltered westerners accustomed to idiot proofed societies have a severe lack of.

shut up retarded fuck,

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>>2838064
They're monkey people living in the jungle. Laos is like a shitty African country. Have to treat them as such and not idolize their pimitivness

>>2838129
Laos has a lot of variety from one inhabited valley to another. I met several folks in the countryside who were urbane, while a few were determined to screw me on the cost as soon as they saw me. The overwhelming majority of people I passed by on foot were neither. They were simply NPCs going about their life next to the highway, passing trucks stirring up plumes of filthy dust that settled on cooked meats on display. Never buy cooked meat from someone with a cold grill. It might have been cooked days prior.

ocean,what ocean?

>>2838102
They typically hunt with snares, so any kind of animal gets caught in it. That's why if you go to a rural market or even market in town like Luang Prabang, you will see all manner of creatures being brought there, not because people are looking to eat it, but they think maybe somebody will buy it for some reason. So you have eagles, owls and shit like that. Along the border areas with Vietnam, they also end up snaring wild cats and these end up eaten too (the Tai Dam along the border area will eat cat; but the Lao will not eat dog or cat).

>>2838100
And people are still trying to survive on the land, because there are no jobs in the cities (primarily because of government mismanagement). People who want jobs have to cross over into Thailand or enroll in the few migrant labor pacts they have with Korea or Japan.

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>>2838790
The Lao people don't have much sense for business beyond the buying, selling and transporting essential supplies. Even the concept of cooking food for money seems off-putting to many of them...something that is the complete opposite in northern Thailand, where almost everyone seems happy to serve a foreigner some food.

Picrel is the backcountry Mekong ferry going from Khop district in Xayaboury to Paktha district in Bokeo province.

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Some of these soups were close to $5 USD at the tourist-oriented riverfront restaurants. The ingredients always seemed skimped on for that price.

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>>2829684
It’s Laos-y

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Someday I'd like to go back to the Thai side of the river, Pak Huai village in Loei province. Kenethao was too dusty and traffic-ridden for my liking.

>>2838958
If they're not a restaurant why would they cook you food? How would they know you would even like what they make? Where are they going to get the ingredients? It's more trouble than it's worth. If you want them to cook for you, you have to convince them to kill one of their chickens for you so you can eat the whole thing. Killing a chicken for them is not an everyday thing. They only keep a few running around there and they are only killed if special guests come to visit. Thailand of course is a much more prosperous country, and they can just go to a supermarket. They are well-stocked on everything and are also used to dealing with tourists. In a Laotian village, tou probably also have to convince them you have low standards or else they will not be comfortable making you food.

>>2838965
Do they have customs officers on the other side that will stop you and arrest you for entering illegally?

>>2829684
Gross

>>2839065
Soldiers with rifles on their back cruise around the border area on motorbikes. It's unlikely they'll stop a random foreigner to check his passport, but you never know if some villager would report you to the authorities.

>>2838958
Also remember that to cook, it's not as easy as turning on a stove for them. They are cooking with charcoal or fireword, which means starting up a fire and all that entails. It's also a wasteful activity, not just in terms of time but fuel. If you talk to them while they're already cooking they might be more amenable to what you need.

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>>2839099
Good points. That's why you'll get offered soup, soup and more soup. Easy to keep a fire going and keep it hot. Doggone it I want solid food! But no, they only have soup from the big kettle in the villages. The bigger and wealthier towns have propane, so they can cook you meals to order.

>>2839232
I remember traveling into a rural village once in a group and if you want a meal there you really have to ask them to butcher one of their animals (chicken or duck) for you and prepare a feast. So it's not something that's going to cost you just a few bucks like a plate of rice and stirfry. It's a major activity, killing and plucking the chicken, getting the fire going, preparing different dishes from it. It's a feast and you will have to pay for it. If you're going to find yourself in a rural village, the best thing to do is bring your own packed lunch. Though there are some villages now that have a house or two that does homestay and in that case you would just eat with them whatever they prepare.

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>>2829684
never been a colony of a Western power when almost every nation around was

lookup Opium Wars (China)
and think of a proper, legit revenge any honorable society would plan to admister after becoming world leader in most of the cutting edge technologies

>>2829760
thanks

better than lonely planet directions
I'm craving to get on the road again

>>2839572 (me)
>never been a colony of a Western power
sorry
maybe was wrong
French Indochina

still upholding my point

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>>2839312
There are more guesthouses than restaurants in Lao PDR. There are more gas stations than restaurants in Lao PDR.

The biggest change in Laos is smartphones. Young village girls vchat with their sugar daddies in the local restaurants while dolled up. Often two girls will talk to one guy. Lao women hardly ever show off their bodies, only their faces (which are arguably the most beautifully proportioned in Southeast Asia). Being Buddhist, they put a serene expression on their face when in public.

>>2839572
mao's own family was a wealthy landlord family. he didn't come from the peasantry so the quote is probably fake

>>2838107
you were looking forward to fight the dogs? what a sad faggoty piece of shit you are.

>>2840733
Go lick your dog's nutsack, you disgusting zoophile. I'm so tired of you dog lovers constantly enabling and justifying the shitty behavior of the worst species of animal on Earth.

>>2829760
lmao your "laos journal" what a pretension little prick you are. no one gives a shit about your consumerist musings, dumb ass

>>2836257

bitter bald retard detected. theres great women in asia, not just whores like u found.

>>2841969
>great
>women
kek, who's gonna tell him?

>>2841970
they are not the same was western women, fren. at least not everywhere

>>2841970
The 2D ones are pretty great

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Of course you NeverTravellers don't care what it's like in Laos, because you'll never leave your mom's basement.

Looks like thailand but 50 years ago?

Laos and cambodia are shitholes, good to see for a few days how poors lives so you will stop crying that wah wah wah i deserve everything for free because boomers,,,,,

>>2842622
More like 100 years ago. Laos is less developed than an African country. They just killed a British father and son recently by putting a nest of murder hornets in their path, and when they were dying all they could do was haul them off to a "clinic" which was nothing more than a thatched hut manned by the local repairman who had also learned the ins and outs of modern medicine on Tiktok. Going to Laos is just announcing to the world that you can't afford a better vacation in Malawi or Lesotho.

>>2829684
I just saw the flag somewhere else and came here to check opinions out.

Do they have combat sports? I'd like to live the early 90's muay thai experience from thailand, but not in fucking thailand with all the nasty saggy gringos.

>"The Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch the Vietnamese planting rice, the Lao listen to the rice grow"
unironically perfectly summarizes SEA

>>2835850
If not king of the hill, normies might know it from gran torino

>>2844868
it actually goes
>the cambodians plant the rice, the vietnamese harvest/sell it. the lao just listen to it grow.