Coming from touristy Thailand, Laos has been quite a change in pace. Admittedly, we knew little about Laos before we came here, so I thought I would include a little background info here:
Laos (pronounced without the S) is one of the poorest countries in the world, heavily dependent on foreign aid. Accordingly to offial statitics, the GDP per head is about $2100 per year, although other sources suggest that the average Laotian surives on $700 per year (i.e. $2 per day). Most Lao people live in rural villages in the low and highlands without electricity and running water (although we did see many villages where running water projects had been established with aid - most notably World Vision, UNICEF, the Australian and Japanese governments).
The government is one of the last few remaining official communist dictatorships (although, they prefer to call themselves a populist democracy...). The country was formally a monarchy and was under French control earlier in the 20th century, and finally declared independence in 1975. The country has a long bloody history of being fought over by its neighbours (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, and China), and during the 20th century became a pawn in the cold war between the soviets and the anti-communist US and French. Sadly, according to my guidebook, the US dropped 2million tonnes of bombs - the equivalent of a plane load of bombs every 8 minutes on Lao over a period of 9 years - which makes it the most heavily bombed country per capita, and also is left with a considerable amount of UXO (unexploded ordinance) which continue to maim Laos.
From a traveller's standpoint, Laos is quite different from its neighbours in terms of development. Health issues are a concern here for travellers: Malaria is rife throughout the country, and there has been a rise in dengue fever; there are no world class hospitals in Laos - therefore, if in need of medical attention, you need to hightail it to Thailand as fast as possible. There has been an outbreak of bird flu in the North of the Country (close to where we went trekking), but since the government represses bad news, who knows if there are more human cases than the 2 deaths reported by the WHO?
In other ways, Laos is trying to learn lessons from the mistakes that the Thai tourist industry has made. Sex tourism is highly illegal here and violations come with harsh penalties, the same is the case for drug traffiking. Laos has also made great efforts to establish more sustainable eco-tourism operations particularly in the more fragile mountainous and remote areas.
We have been enchanted by Laos and found the people to be extremely welcoming and friendly (and very beautiful) and the scenery is quite stunning - this landlocked country is mostly moutainous and covered in forests.
