Anyone here ever been to Laos? What's it like?
>>1121746
Like rest of South East Asia, but less fun, less interesting, and less friendly to travelers. Stay out stupid redneck!
>>1121746
I've been many times. The stock answer to this, which I got from friends in Northeastern Thailand, is that it's like Northeastern Thailand was 30 years ago.
This isn't all that accurate, but Laos is like a much smaller, much poorer, quasi-Communist (the government is revolutionary in origin, and authoritarian in practice, but there is little effective socialism in place, limited propaganda or iconography, and market liberalization has been an increasing fact of life since I started visiting 20+ years ago), French- and Vietnamese-influenced Thailand in many respects. It's a bit more ethnically diverse (the lowland Lao, who are very similar to the Thai culturally and linguistically, are only about 60% of the total population, with the rest made up of various "tribal" and minority groups), and a bit more conservative in many ways, but it's more like Thailand than it is like any other country.
An important difference is that it doesn't cater to hedonists the way Thailand does--although there now nightclubs and a suprising number of streetwalkers in Vientiane (a town that resembles a cross between Khon Kaen and Chiang Mai), sex tourism is very publicly forbidden and even more popularly frowned upon, and there are no visible official venues for it (like go-go bars or massage parlors). And although the country has opened its doors in the last fifteen years or so to hippy backpacker scumbags who fueled a drug-laden, boozy party area around Vang Vieng that gets shut down every few years, it's actually really drug-unfriendly and conservative in terms of dress and deportment traditions. Vang Vieng remains a national embarrassment. Yes, that smiling old lady will sell you and your dreadlocks and sarong a beer at breakfast, but while she does so she will talk to her friend in Lao about how awful you are and how little you respect Lao culture. Visitors have been foolish enough to think it was an "anything goes", "mellow" society, and it's really far from the truth.
>>1121768
this is so accurated,
also the food and drinks are a lot more expensive than Thailand,
they import most of things from Thailand and Vietnam.
>>1121768
So basically act like it's Oman and don't be a douchebag and you'll be fine? Honestly I want to go to Laos to avoid the backpacker "real traveler" scene if that makes sense.
>>1122195
Even if you are a douchebag, you will be fine. But the locals will hate you. The better-dressed, squarer, and more polite you are, the better an impression you will leave. But even if you leave a bad impression it is pretty easy to have a good time there.
It's much more heavily touristed than Oman, and many visitors are wild and wooly. But it is at heart a rural, mountainous, mostly-Buddhist country run by a Marxist-Leninist clique of increasingly elderly men. So not ruffling feathers unnecessarily will improve the quality of your visit. But your chances of going to jail are negligible.
>>1121768
>but while she does so she will talk to her friend in Lao about how awful you are and how little you respect Lao culture.
Fucking hate people like this.
Happy to reap the rewards, but unwilling to take the good with the bad, its the same everywhere in the world and its not just them that have to deal with tourists doing disrespectful things.
Do you think i like American tourists comming here, telling me how backwards my country is (russia), walking all over military monuments taking photos and chatting with no disregard to what it represents, complaining at how boring our homes look, complaining about communism, talking shit about our political system and angry rants everytime they see some communist symbolism?
Not really, but they pay me (english tour guide) and i have a good standard of living because of it. If we didnt want them doing that, we could just stop, but we dont, so unless what they are doing is very bad we just humor them (admittedly its not just Americans, many other countries too, but Americans tend to be the most opinionated people and most ignorant when it comes to Russian culture, they just dont know well because they have never been told).
Also, its not like the tourists are going out of their way to do things to annoy locals, they simply dont know. Its a different thing if they are going out to cause offence obviously.
Anyway, whenever i travel i hope to get similar treatment, tourists are tourists, take good with bad.
>>1122261
>Anyway, whenever i travel i hope to get similar treatment, tourists are tourists, take good with bad.
I think the folks in Laos mostly do the same. But a lot of people who backpack through Southeast Asia are really dirty-looking, which is very hard to understand for most people. Along with being a small, not very worldly (few Laotians can go abroad, and those who do almost all go to Thailand, which is basically a big, rich Laos--it's maybe like when people from the Minsk suburbs get to Moscow), culturally conservative, strictly governed country, it was only in the last ~25 years that the government stopped having grooming requirements to enter the country in the first place. There used to be signs at the border warning that long-haired men might be denied entry.
>>1121746
Laos is really like the rest of SAO but just poorer, more rural overall. the food is kind of dirty like the hmer food.
some interesting site to see, historical and scenically.
>gasstation!!!
>>1123109
Do you have anymore pictures? This is awesome.
>>1121765
I had a chuckle anon.
>>1122261
>he still embraces gommunism
>>1123670
I read in his voice
>dat 9 rivers
>>1121746
Laos is shit. Its filthy, the food is also pretty trash. And expect to be mistreated and not respected by the people their, they hate whites.
>>1123749
I have never been to a country I talk shit about: the post.
I banged a Laotian ladyboy
I really liked Laos. People were very friendly and approachable but like other people have said it's how you carry yourself and dress. I crashed my motorcycle way in the bum fuck jungle and was unconscious for x amount of time and when I woke up all the people from this little village were around me. My bike was totalled, I had jason bourne level amnesia, and had to get serious medical attention. The laotians took care of me throughout all of it and I'd have 3 or 4 visitors a day coming by to check in on me and bring me beer. The opium in Laos is also the best I have ever smoked and you can buy it for peanuts. It's against the law to fuck laotian women but I'm not sure how much that's enforced. There's a midnight curfew on night clubs but the cities other than Luang Prabang aren't really worth spending time in. 10/10 looking forward to going back in the next couple years.
