Mountains and Hill-tribes

When’s the best time to visit Laos? Probably the most frequently asked question in respect to this part of Southeast Asia is ‘when’s the best time to visit Laos’. In our opinion, there’s no simple answer so read on for a brief overview of Laos weather and a few of the pros and cons of travel at different times of…

Lao E-visa A new online, Lao E-Visa system is now in place and valid for entry at the following immigration points: Wattay International Airport, Vientiane, Luang Prabang International Airport, Pakse International Airport and land crossings at the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge Vientiane and the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge II, Savannakhet. (Note it is not available at the Friendship Bridge IV, which connects…

Perched atop a nearly 5,000 ft mountain the old French hill-station of Sapa in Vietnam’s far northern reaches can get a bit stuck in the clouds from time to time so a big cheer all round as we awoke on the morning of our projected one-day Sapa trek to this magnificent view. This was the breakfast vista from the restaurant…

Lao waterfalls March, being the dry season, might not be the ideal time of year for Lao waterfalls but come May and June when the rains start they’ll be filling out, flowing fast and back to their lushest best so here’s a small selection of waterfall photos taken at sites included on our Mekong Adventure, Lao tour itinerary, beginning with…

Hill-tribes in Southeast Asia. You’ll certainly have come across the term ‘hill-tribe’ in many of our Southeast Asia tour pages, or indeed those of most other operators running tours in the region, or, for that matter, in most of the relevant guidebooks you’ll find. It refers to the minority ethnic groups inhabiting the mountainous areas of northern Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Burma…

Laos World Heritage List A brief country-by-country rundown of Southeast Asia’s various UNESCO Sites, beginning, for no particular reason, with the list of Laos World Heritage sites. It is an easy one to start with since the small, land-locked and sparsely populated nation has the grand total of 3 sites. Having said that, a scan through the UNESCO list, (which…

Laos recommended reading and viewing Well, mostly a Laos recommended reading list since we can’t find many movies set in Laos, half-decent or otherwise, and haven’t come across too many good documentaries either. There are numerous books on Lao history, the majority of which fall into either the 19th-century French explorers’ accounts or the Vietnam/Indochina war period categories. Studies of…

The Plain of Jars Laos You will usually see adjectives such as mysterious or enigmatic preceding the name Plain of Jars, Laos, with the reason being – since a stone jar in itself is not so mysterious –  that archaeologists can’t agree on their date or even their actual purpose, therefore – enigmatic! The stone jars – up to 2m…

The Black Tai The term Tai describes the broad ethnic group (the Tai-Kadai linguistic family) which includes the Thai (Siamese), Lao, Shan, Northern Thai, Thai Lu, Red Tai, White Tai etc who occupy a wide band of Asia from the Assam region of India, through southern China, Burma’s Shan States, Laos, Northern Vietnam and of course Thailand itself. We touched…

Red Hmong of Lai Chau Continuing westwards from the Flower Hmong of Ha Giang and Black Hmong of Lao Cai we reach Lai Chau Province and its colourful Red Hmong of Lai Chau. Their villages are quite widely spread across the northern and central parts of the province, being replaced to the south and west by Tai and Lao subgroups. …