Completely unexpected for myself Sam-Nea (Sam Neua), a mountain town in which, according to LP’s description, there is absolutely nothing to do, I found my almost favorite place in Laos. There were surprisingly friendly people here, and young people on the streets even said “Hello” and asked all sorts of questions in English, like “where from?” and “where?”
There was a colorful market here with friendly sellers and a lot of all kinds of normal food, from donuts with delicious fillings to grilled fish. Nobody was trying to sell anything here and people were just nice. This was the most informative office tour. information throughout Laos. And in general it would be difficult to find best place to end my trip to Laos.
On the second day we went to the town of Vieng Xai, located 28 kilometers away. At 6.30 am we left the guesthouse and found ourselves in a city shrouded in dense fog. This is the case everywhere in northern Laos during the cold season. Until nine in the morning, until the sun breaks through the fog, it is impossible to live here - you can only survive. Very, very cold!
I didn’t expect it to be so cold in the north of Laos - in February it was cold in the north of Myanmar, but still not like that. Russian people, of course, are no strangers to cold weather, but this is when we can go to a warm cafe and eat hot soup, come home where it’s warm, take a hot shower that will flow as long as we want, and not three minutes, for which a tank of water lasts heater. Here, there is nowhere to hide from the cold - everything freezes here, and the locals don’t seem to know about heating devices. Here hotels freeze through and through, and the temperature in the room is the same as outside - 5-10 degrees. It is impossible to be in it without a sweater and not under blankets. And it’s also very difficult to get around, because frost-resistant locals constantly open the windows on the buses. And very often only songthaews (drafty pickup trucks with a roof and benches on the sides) drive for distances of up to several hours, and such a trip early in the morning can turn into torture.
Vieng Xai (Vieng Xai) is a “hidden city”, in the caves of which during the Indochina War from 1964 to 1973, Laotian communists lived, led by comrade Kayson Phomvihane. And along with them, 20 thousand local residents took refuge in the caves, fleeing the daily massive bombing by the Americans.
Oh, by the way, some information about the bombing of Laos. Many times I came across a quote from one of the US politicians of that time, who promised to return Laos “to the stone age.” During the 9 years of war, according to average estimates, one bomb was dropped from the air on poor little Laos every 8 minutes (24 hours a day!). From 1964 to 1969 alone, 450,000 tons of all kinds of explosive crap were dropped on the country, and during the entire war - 1.9 million tons, half a ton for everyone living in Laos at that time, including babies. And in general, during the Indochina War, more bombs were dropped on Laos than on all of Europe during the Second World War.
Laos is now home to six million people and is the country with the smallest population density in Southeast Asia, but with the highest birth rate.
Vieng Xai is a very strong place. Bomb craters are visible all around the limestone hills, and the cave conditions in which people lived are horrific.
Each of the caves where communist leaders lived has a special room with a tightly closed door and a massive Soviet-made iron oxygen apparatus that pumps in air from outside in the event of chemical attacks (which, fortunately, did not occur in this region).
There are stands all around with interesting comments, and tours are held twice a day at 9 am and 1 pm English. Sani and I arrived together at 9 o’clock, and they assigned us a very pleasant guide who spoke interestingly.
At the Vieng Xai tourist office they welcomed me like family. They immediately said that their boss spoke Russian, they called him, they sat us down at the table, gave us tea, another Russian-speaking Laotian came, working at Comrade Cason’s museum in Vientiane, and the three of us together tried to remember the Russian language. Both Laotians graduated from a pedagogical institute in Volgograd in the early 90s, spoke very warmly about Russia and were very upset that Russian tourists did not come here - before me they could only remember one visitor from Russia.
I was amazed by the warm welcome and again glad that I was ending my trip to Laos with places where friendly people live.
That seems to be all. It was interesting to see Laos, but it is not my favorite country, and I am unlikely to want to return here.
My Laos Top 5 What I liked and remember most:
The colorful village of Tat Lo in the south with waterfalls, pleasant villages with friendly locals within motorbike reach;
An amazing party at , although I didn’t remember it in places;
Sam Neua, as a city with the most friendly Laotians, and Vieng Xai, as a sad place, a must-see for anyone interested in modern history.
Contrary to my expectations, I didn’t like , and , at all, because they had a completely rotten atmosphere, the highest concentration of tourists in all of Southeast Asia (in my experience) and the most unfriendly locals I’ve ever met.
In general, in Laos, almost everywhere I was wildly delighted by the village children - because of their happy smiles and joyfully squeaky “Start up!” And the markets were the most colorful I've ever seen, although I feel terribly sorry for all the little birds and animals whose corpses are sold there. And it seems to be the quietest, because there is absolutely no motor transport outside the cities, and the most rural country I have ever seen.
Goodbye Laos! After all the negative things I’ve heard about Vietnam, I’ll probably remember you with kind words more than once. Even with all your indifferent people who don’t want us whites in their country.
On the border of Laos and Cambodia, the Mekong River breaks into many small streams, between which lie islands. Some of them are inhabited, in particular the island of Don Det, on which a recreational area with hotels and restaurants is organized.
I've heard claims that the crowd moved here after Vang Vieng closed, but that's not true. At night the village is quiet and calm, there is no discotheque, except that the presence of "lucky" menu items hints at fun. 
There is also tubing, a signature Laotian entertainment. This is a ride along the river on a big wheel or lifebuoy with a beer. Although it is more interesting to go kayaking.
In terms of infrastructure, the village has many hotels and restaurants. Prices in restaurants are high (as in other tourist places), but if you go further from the pier, prices drop to normal. I found a hotel for $3.5 with the slogan “Our rooms are modest, but we have a big heart.”
It's on at the moment For me, a record for the cheapest hotel. For three and a half dollars, the conditions here are quite decent: a small house, a large bed, a mosquito net (a useful device that is often missing), and an attached shower. There is no hot water, but during the day it is quite warm as it is heated by the sun. Electricity works normally (there were problems with this on the island before, because the supply came from generators). There is a hammock hanging at the entrance, where you can catch the Wi-Fi of the neighboring restaurant.
There are no ATMs on the island, but you can make a cash advance with a decent commission (5 percent). Cash currency exchange is also at a not very favorable rate, 5 percent lower than the real one. I didn’t find SIM cards for sale, I bought them later in Pakse. Stores generally do not offer a large assortment. Another disadvantage is the high prices for travel from the islands. You most likely won’t be able to leave on your own, because the boats depart only at one time, when tourists are taken out of the island. For example, I bought a ticket from Banlung to Don Det, including a boat, for $12, which I considered very expensive for a three-hour journey. On Don Det, a ticket to Banlung sells for $18. The two hour journey to Pakse costs almost $9.
Eat small beach, where boats moor. You can swim, the water is clean. The current is strong in places.
The scenery around is pleasant.
Behind the tourist village there are agricultural lands and houses of local residents.
The pompous arch remains from colonial times. The trucks behind her are local public transport! They bring children from the island to school.
The falcon sits and does not pay attention to anyone.
Fields and cows. The island can be crossed on foot in about 40 minutes.
Don Det is connected by this bridge with neighboring island Don Khon.
Old rails lie nearby. This is no accident.
The fact is that until recently the only railway in Laos was located here. (They recently built a couple of kilometers of extension of the rails from Thailand across the border near Vientiane, without reaching Vientiane itself). Why do we need a railway on some island in the middle of the river? The Mekong's 4,000 islands have high rapids, making it impossible to swim up or down the river. The only option is to drag the boat (or its cargo) overland through Don Khon. To facilitate this task, the French built railway. Now all that remains of it is a rusty locomotive and the remains of rails, because the cargo can be transported along the road along the Mekong.
And here are the rapids themselves, which are not entirely correctly called waterfalls.
There is a beach downstream.
I’ve been in Laos for more than 10 days, but, to be honest, I still haven’t understood why everyone is so wildly delighted with it.
Compared to all the previous countries, there’s nothing special to see here (though I’ve only been to the southern half of Laos so far, I hope it will be more interesting in the north), the nature is completely ordinary to my taste, spoiled by the beauty of Indonesia, the people are a little frostbitten, although, probably, after Indonesia and Malaysia, all residents of Southeast Asia will seem closed and cold. And what upsets/angers me most of all is the constant brazen attempts of “transport department employees” to rip off 1.5-3 times more money than they are entitled to. Moreover, this is done completely openly, in front of the locals, and the price does not fall to normal - they insist on their own, which exceeds all reasonable limits.
So far I have liked the people only in a few villages in the very south of the country - in those places where foreigners are rare guests. They greeted us with a joyful “Start up!”, i.e. Laotian “Sabai-dii”, and all the children, in addition, waved their hands. And in villages often visited by tourists, in addition to this, they also asked for pens and money.
For the rest of the inhabitants of Laos, you are like a ghost - they simply do not notice you, and if they notice, they do it in such a way that it would be better not to notice. And on the faces of everyone working on the tour. business, wild fatigue from foreigners is written. In this regard, Laos is similar to Thailand.
English is rarely and poorly spoken here, although perhaps this is a problem for all peoples whose alphabet differs from Latin, and, moreover, the language is a tone one. They don’t try to help here if you are standing there looking confused or clearly in need of help, and in response to simple questions you most often hear “no”, three times in a row for greater persuasiveness. Many don't even try to understand what you want from them. Of course, there are exceptions to all of the above, but they are rare and generally unnoticeable.
Here, with the exception of those few villages where people were very friendly and nice, they did not smile, but simply looked without emotion on their faces. Although, if you smile at them, they will answer the same.
It seems to me that they don’t want tourists here. Every day I feel like a colonialist who, after half a century of “freedom,” has returned and is not welcome here.
It all started at the border, when a Laotian border guard, for his work at odd hours, i.e. from Friday evening to Sunday evening, demanded overtime pay. Work and overtime hours hung above his window, but nothing was said about the amount of extortion. Only in a separate sign nearby did we find “entry fee for Laos – one dollar.” But the guy stubbornly wanted three from each, and we stubbornly sent him. As a result, we agreed on 1.5 per person, although the foreigner in front of us paid two dollars for herself, and Ksyukha, when leaving a week later through the same border crossing on Sunday, sent me a text message about paying one dollar.
Welcome to Lao PDR i.e. People's Democratic Republic of Laos.
What immediately catches your eye is the countless number of tourists: both individually and in organized groups. It seems that even in Thailand I have not seen so many of them and so everywhere. Because it’s fashionable to travel to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, everyone goes, and I will go. What a blessing that Myanmar and Indonesia, apart from Bali, are not fashionable destinations. Wherever there are no tourists, the nicest people live: in Syria, Myanmar, Indonesia. And in Malaysia mass tourism somehow it is not reflected - apparently, Malaysians are immune from the bad influence of foreign tourists.
And here between the cities there are unexpectedly excellent asphalt roads with kilometer posts indicating the distance to the next city and different cities of Laos, and excellent, smooth dirt roads leading to the villages. If there are cars, they are brand new air-conditioned SUVs. They are, however, rare.
There are very few motorbikes and almost no cars in Laos, so the roads are spacious and quiet, and passing or oncoming traffic is rare. And therefore Laos - great place for cycling or motorbike travel.
Everywhere there is mobile communications, everyone has a brand new Nokia, and you can find the Internet in the most unexpected places.
IN large villages There are several Western Union points. But in general, you can pay either in kip (local currency) or in dollars - the latter is usually more profitable, but they are not accepted everywhere.
For the first time in eight months since Myanmar, I discovered right-hand traffic and left-hand drives. During the first few days I still couldn’t figure out which side of the bus I needed to get on, and to this day the driver sitting on the left seems somehow unnatural.
Hammocks were clearly invented in Laos. Here, almost every village house has a hammock suspended in/under/next to the house, in which one of the family rests.
People like to drink here. The assortment includes local beer BeerLao, yellow boxes of which with empty beer bottles are everywhere next to many houses. And Lao Lao, a local rice wine, is sold for pennies.
Communism is gradually being replaced by capitalism, but visible traces of communism still remain: red flags with a hammer and sickle, red ties on the necks of schoolchildren, however, this somehow very much depends on the area, our UAZs driving on the roads, and the likelihood of meeting a local, speaking Russian.
There are strange foods sold on the streets and at bus stops. Chicken and quail eggs are not taken out from under the bird immediately, but are kept almost until the last, then they are taken away, boiled and sold. You peel an egg, suspecting nothing, and there is an embryo there. The abomination is incredible, and for the locals it is a delicacy. There are eggs in the middle stage, there is no yolk in them, inside there is a homogeneous light gray mass with black dots - the locals chew them half a dozen at a time and with great pleasure. They also sell fried grasshoppers strung on a stick - also an incredibly popular product among the locals.
The whole country consists of villages. Even Vientiane at first glance looks like a village, albeit a large one with stone houses in the center. Most The villages are ordinary, but the villages of small nations look very colorful and traditional - they consist of tiny bamboo huts, the people make full use of pottery and jugs, and women and girls wear traditionally embroidered sarongs.
After the border, Ksenia and I drove 40 km to Pakse (Pakse) for 1.5 dollars per person, although the guy initially wanted five per person. Everything around me was somehow too contradictory to what I expected to see. Excellent asphalt road, I'm not traveling in a broken-down bus, but in an air-conditioned SUV.
At the bus station in Pakse, we waited for four hours for our bus to leave, and no one could say exactly what time the bus would leave, at 2 or 3 p.m. The bus eventually left at 16:00, but we had a very pleasant wait. In a cafe, I was fed soup with meat of unknown origin, the name of which in Lao my aunt couldn’t find in my phrasebook, but I hope she was just looking hard. And they drank beer - there is a lot of it here, and it is cheap. And a friendly and smiling man came up to us local resident, who, having learned that we were from Russia, began to speak to us in Russian. It turned out that he had long ago studied in Moscow to be a border guard, but he had already forgotten his Russian, but he spoke English fluently.
In four hours we traveled on a large and comfortable bus with reclining soft seats, clean curtains and a floor spit on by passengers to the town Attaps (Attapeu), where we checked into a double room for $7 with its own bathroom, TV with satellite channels, air conditioning, toilet paper, soap, drinking water and clean bed linen.
Results of the day: swore in Russian with a border guard who was extorting a bribe, drove in his first Laotian air-conditioned SUV on an excellent road, spoke in Russian with a former Moscow student, almost ate quail fetuses, giving this opportunity to a bus station dog by throwing a bag of quail eggs out of the window bus, I ate soup with the meat of an unknown animal, and we both ate pies with “kittens”, i.e. baguettes with filling of unknown origin.
Conclusions of the day: we need to be more careful when communicating in Russian, we don’t want to eat eggs anymore, we eat meat only if someone managed to convey to us in a language we know who this meat belongs to, and no more baguettes with unknown fillings .
Surprise of the day: Having looked at the stamp in the passport, I discovered that the Laotian border guard gave us a period of stay until 01/02/2008, although the calendar shows November 4, and we requested a visa in Bangkok for 30 days. For several days I was tormented by the question: did the border guard mix up the numbers, or did they change the rules? I posted a question on the LP forum, where they finally answered me that the other day the Laotians, completely unexpectedly for everyone, changed the rules, and now a visa obtained at the consulate gives 60 days at the border. Hooray!
Answer to a 5 letter crossword puzzle starting with the letter K:
CHINA
What does the word mean CHINA in dictionaries:
- Question: "An inexhaustible source" of counterfeit goods- answer: CHINA
- "Celestial Empire"
- Great Wall Address
- Asian power
- An Asian country where representatives of the fair sex are put on wooden stocks from early childhood to maintain miniature legs until marriage
- In which Asian country are cricket fights especially popular?
- In which country were Sinanthropus - primitive people - found?
- In which country did badminton originate?
- In which country did they first use decimals?
- In which country did noodles first appear?
- Which country produces the most fish?
- Which country has the most people?
- Which country has the most camels today?
- Which country has the longest wall in the world?
- In which country did the first paper money appear?
- In which country did the world's first restaurants appear?
- In which country did the first guns appear?
- In which country did the first theatrical puppets appear?
- In what country did the compass appear?
- In which country was the toothbrush invented?
- In which country was sauerkraut invented?
- In which country did the Yellow Turban uprising take place?
- In which country does the Disney film Mulan take place?
- In which country does the film "Shanghai Express" starring Marlene Dietrich take place?
- In which country was the world's first printing press created?
- Which country did the Silk Road lead to?
- In the name of this state you can hear a mammal and the exclamation
- Owner of Taiwan
- Second largest US lender after Japan
- Where does Andersen's fairy tale "The Nightingale" take place?
- State in Asia
- Borders India and Russia
- Borders with Russia
- Until 1912, the flag of this country was an image of a dragon on a yellow background.
- Do residents of this country consume snake meat the most in food?
- Shy country
- What country does the orange tree come from?
- What country Great Wall fenced herself off
- Which country launched the Neptune spy satellite into space in John Grisham's novel The Broker?
- Which country has the domain "cn"?
- To which country does the world owe the invention of toilet paper?
- What country do sinologists study?
- Where are almost all the poached rhino horns sold?
- Between Russia and India
- The name of this country comes from the name of a group of Mongolian tribes - the Khitans
- Name the state whose symbol is a mythical animal with the antlers of a deer, the paws of a tiger, the ears of a bull, the head of a camel, the eyes of a demon, the neck of a snake, the claws of an eagle?
- Napoleon believed that right beyond the Urals the...
- One of the nicknames of the son of Yuri Dolgoruky - Andrei Bogolyubsky, under whom the construction of the Moscow Kremlin began
- Through which country did the CER pass?
- Celestial country
- Riga is Latvia, and Beijing?
- Mao's birthplace
- Birthplace of Mao Zedong
- Homeland and patrimony of ruler Mao
- The birthplace of inexpensive goods
- The birthplace of silk and paper
- The birthplace of silk and gunpowder
- Close to Laos and Vietnam
- Close to Nepal and Laos
- Largest country in Asia
- The most populous country
- A collection of short stories by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, "A Slow Boat in CHINA"
- Neighbor of India and Russia
- Country hidden behind the wall
- The Mongols called the capital of this state Khanbalik.
- The country is the main supplier of the world's population
- Country of Lee and Chans
- Country around Beijing
- Ming Dynasty Country
- The country behind the "Great Wall"
- Country of Wushu and Kungfu Fans
- A country led by the city of Beijing
- Country with a billion people
- Country with the farthest point from all oceans
- The country with the world's largest theater
- Country with capital Beijing
- A country where the yuan is in use
- The country where fireworks first appeared
- The country where acupuncture was born fifty centuries ago
- The country that gave the world gunpowder
- The country that gave the world silk and umbrellas
- The country famous for the wall
- A country full of rice lovers
- A country full of rice gourmets
- Country, supplier of every fifth inhabitant of the Earth
- Country, birthplace of paper
- Country, birthplace of wallpaper
- Country, birthplace of the Pekingese
- Country, birthplace of gunpowder
- Country, birthplace of porcelain
- The country known as the birthplace of acupuncture
- A country that has two problems: quality and quantity
- Area around Beijing
- The third country in the world to send a manned spacecraft into space
- Which Asian country has Beijing as its capital?
- Which country has the most borders with other countries?
- Which country has the longest border in the world?
- Although, as you know, freshness comes only first, in the cuisine of this country there is a recipe for “soup of three freshnesses”
- in the photo there are red flags with stars
