what is Laos like?
>>2829684>what is Laos like?nice
>>2829688Dare 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
>>2829684I 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 cunnySex prest begone in the name of Christ
>>2829702I'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.
>>2829684Britpest told me it’s easy to find “that” when I’m there. Keeping it in my back pocket
>>2829703They don't have Christ in their conscience. Their immortality is bottomless. When they're bad, they're horrendous.
>>2829710Enjoy the flames of hell, pedo. You will feel terror in your last moments on earth
>>2829684It'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).
>>2829684It'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 infrastructureOnly country in the region with high speed rail
I liked this hotel, despite the smells of the lagoon>>2829744The 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.
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.
In the afternoon's 25 C warmth, this same village was swarming with activity.
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.
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 infrastructureThank you for illustrating the point. Roads and bridges were better 50 years ago, before the communist cave monkeys took over.
This
>>2829784In other words, it's hot as hell. No beaches or anything either.
>>2829780how regular were your studying escapades?
>>2829790Three times in one day, that's it>>2829781>bridges were better in 1975In the middle of a bombing campaign? Doubt. >>2829788Winter climate in northern Laos is amazingly mild, rainless and sunny. By March it starts getting really hot.
>>2829684Yet Another Asian nation
>>2829690it 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.
>>2830027The 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 comingwhy do you say that? construction is almost done
>>2830406The 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 comingThey did just complete the other slow direct Vientiane - Bangkok train though>Singapore to China high speed rail? 2085It will take that long for them to pull their heads out of their ass and just complete the direct Malaysia - Singapore connection
>>2830418oh, they should have hired a chinese construction company
>>2829759>Laos is a very high-trust societylol nopethere is no such thing
>>2830467People 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 trafficThat 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.
>>2829724is 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?
>>2831324How would anyone be able to tell that you're intoxicated? Are you shoving people and yelling at them?
>>2831278The 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.
>>2829712there a way to get them to sell that immortality bruh ?
>>2829694I've heard there's a lot of kidnapped slaves there, laos, thai, chinese, indian, white etc.
>>2831823All 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.
>>2831861The coal mine outside Hongsa in Xayaboury is pretty spectacular. Overall, Hongsa was a nice village.
>>2829744kek, i know rightsounds like a libertarian "paradise"
I paid 100K for grilled goat meat at a Lao restaurant. It took me two hours to chew through the whole pile.
>>2831872The coal mine is a Thai project for a coal-fired power plant on the same site for electricity exported to Thailand.
You can see remnants of the French influence in Laos today
>>2831324I 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.
>>2832045Do not even compare this shithole country to France.
>>2832066Your feelings don't change the fact that Indochina was once French territory.
>>2832078They 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.
>>2832045After reading this, I want to ask one thingDo 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?
>>2832675The 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.
>>2832681LMAFOOOOOOO Look at you melting over a single comment Good luck in life, Anon, you'll need a lot of it
>>2832675>one countrynta but I hear Malawi is awesome
>>2832675What does it matter if I enjoyed the country or not? I travel to experience the country, not to pleasure myself.
>>2833699I hope you did not get any pleasure out of the experience either
>>2832675You'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.
>>2832675How's your post related here? I thought the OC image was pretty interesting. Looks like French military barrack style.>>2833756There'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.
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 hopeYou live in a world of fantasy "hopes"I live in the real world
>>2833869When is your next trip? I know a few hellholes you can go experience.
>>2833756It’s half that and half anons pretending they’ve been somewhere when they haven’t and then lying about how much money they have.
>>2829788How about rivers and lakes? Or is it all just leech infested?
>>2833902Erosion 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.>>2833895India, 42 days out
Thailand's natural beauty is much better preserved than Laos, where most people still rely on the land for a living.
>>2833902In 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.
>>2833947Extracting 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.
>>2829684It's a kinda laosy place
>>2829684I 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.
>>2835229Did 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
>>2835232Yeah 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.
>>2835107I'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 gohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laotian_Americans>only 245,000 in a nation of 330 million
>>2835235Much 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.>>2835850Laos is one of the countries Trump restricted entry visas to.
The five main categories of noise in Laos>Roosters>Dogs>Motorbikes>Semi trucks>Party speakersThe villagers don't like quiet, they like noise and activity.
>>2835898Can you feel the plastic chair underneath you as you imagine these sounds?
>>2835897Renting 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>>2835844I 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 roadsTravels on Toast is doing it now with a tuktuk trip through northern Laos. Those are the real travelers.
>>2829684Lousy
>>2835949That buffalo meat was chewy as can be. Served at a little eatery in the market of Paklai, XayabouryPretty 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. >>2835962There 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. >12goI've seen angry reviews from customers who claim their 12go train tickets were not honored by LCR.
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.
>>2836181>My gf is from Laos and we live together in BangkokIs she brown?>She recently got denied entry at the Bangkok airport after our vacation in Japanlmao 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 ticketToo 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.
>>2836208Yeah 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.
>>2836209don'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
>>2836216I 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.
These dust-ridden roads are a lot more treacherous than they look for a motorbikeLast monsoon's ruts are rock hard under a thick layer of fine dust.
>>2835962>I just used 12go it was a bit more expensiveThe 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
>>2836291You disgusting scumbag.
>>2836326>the Lao king supportedit's not like he had a choice. the US was running ($$$) the country in those days
>>2836417Calm down, Bounseng Keo