Description
Bokeo province is the smallest province in the country and borders Thailand and Myanmar. This is the Lao side of the 'Golden Triangle'. The province has 34 ethnic groups, the second most ethnically diverse province in Laos.
Climate
The annual monsoon cycle gives Laos two distinct seasons: May to October is wet and November to April is dry. Southern Laos gets the most rain overall; the peaks of the Annamite Chain receive the heaviest rainfall, over 3000mmi annually.The provinces of Luang Prabang, Sainyabuli and Xieng Khuang usually receive only 1000 to 1500mm a year. Vientiane and Savannalchet get about 1500 to 2000mm, as do Phongsali, Luang Nam Tha and Bokeo.
In the Mekong River valley (from Bokeo Province to Champasak Province) the highest temperatures (up to 38ºC) occur March/April and the lowest are in December/ January (as low as 15ºC).
In the mountains of Xieng Khuang December/January nights can easily fall to OºC. In mountainous provinces of lesser elevation, temperatures may be a few degrees higher. During most of the rainy season, daytime averages are about 29ºC in the lowlands and around 25ºC in mountain valleys.
Attractions
HoueiSay (Huay Xai) is the border town with Thailand, the city is busy and prosperous.
Located in the center of HoueiSay is Chomkao Manilat temple. The view from the the temple hill over HoueiSay city, the Mekong river and surrounding mountains is a definite reward for making it up the many steps...
General Advice
show respect and use your head and eyes and common sense will guide you well in navigating Lao culture safely. When in Laos, try and do as the as the Lao do and remember; don't touch heads, don't loose your cool with people and don't flash your flesh. The rest is about manners, shoes left outside, accepting hosts' greetings and not upsetting religious feelings.
The Lao are very friendly and hospitable and a minimum effort will make your trip smooth and memorable. Respect the culture and you will earn its respect in turn. Welcome , Lao people use the 'NOP' on meeting and using it will win you instant friends if performed sincerely. How to use the 'NOP'? Raise your hands in a praying gesture. The higher you go, the more respect you show, but don't be over the top!
Foot and Head
In Buddhism and general Asian society, the head is very important to the souls and its purity, while the feet walk the earth and all that is deposited on it. Raising your feet to headheight, putting them on furniture or pointing with them is taken as a deliberate insult or sign of barbarism. Don't gesture with your feet or touch an Asian head. You would be asking for trouble. Lao is a land of calm and patience, and shattering the peace will do you no favours.
In a Lao House - Shoes are generally no-go indoors. Use your eyes and common sense to maximise your chances of social success. Keep your head and general profile low at gatherings. Particularly when passing by older people respect should be seen to be shown ! Show respect in temples and shrines, watching how locals behave in such places. Dress neatly when visiting temples and religious shrines. You should never go shirtless, or in shorts, miniskirts or hot pants. It is acceptable to wear shoes when walking around a temple compound, but not inside the chapel where the principal Buddha image is kept. Visitors are welcome to relax and be peaceful in all temples. Keep your head lower than the buddahs and monks. Buddhist priests must not be touched by a woman or to accept anything from the hand of one. If a woman gives anything to a monk, she first hands it to a man, who then presents it. Don't turn your back on a buddah.
Environment
You will rarely be alone in Laos, even when you seem to be, and pollution is not well received. Bins are scarce, so use your plastic bags to return rubbish to towns or villages. And finally... Keep smiling, and you will make lots of friends!
Cheap Airfare To Laos Here !
Showing posts with label Go to Laos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Go to Laos. Show all posts
2009/11/08
2009/11/05
Kuang Si Falls, Laos
Kuang Si Falls : Laos
About one hour by boat or tuk-tuk from Luang Prabang, the Kuang Si Falls are a very attractive place to visit. When you arrive at the bottom of the falls, it still is organized with tables and bridges. But as soon as you get higher, there are less people and the path only consists of mud and stones. At the first level you reach you can go for a swim (don't expect an Olympic size pool though). This place is certainly attractive, quiet and with a nice view of the valley and the water coming from above.
The real adventure starts when you try to find the upper river. Another climb brings you higher on the hills, but then you can choose another path every hundred metres. Every path leads somewhere else, and sometimes you have to walk through mud or duck under trees hanging over the path. It took us some time to find the right path, because many paths actually lead away from the falls. When finally we found the right spot, we concluded that swimming on the lower level was more interesting and returned.
Kuang Si Falls Before getting back to the parking of the tuk-tuk, we could not resist the small stalls with wooden utensils and toys. Trying to be very selective we ended up taking 8 different things, most of them presents. When we headed back to Luang Prabang, we saw that those artefacts had actually been made right there. The road to the falls is interesting as are the falls themselves, passing several bridges and a dusty road.
Check Airfare to Laos Here !
2008/12/25
Why You Should Go to Laos
Laos
Imagine a sleepy French village on a drowsy afternoon at the end of summer. That is how Laos feels. Only less vibrant.
The land of crawling broadband and dawdling monks shatters – or at least quietly snuffs – the myth that southeast Asia is all tiger economy hustle and bustle. Every time a ripple of thunder breaks the stillness of the former French colony sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, the electricity goes down. Forget that fruit shake you ordered, which requires a blender’s input. Better make it a Beer Lao.
Careful how you handle the currency, as Kip are next to worthless, meaning that it’s necessary to keep track of lots of zeros.
All these surplus circles mean it’s easy to get confused and tender an insultingly small amount or a fortune, then only realise the gaffe because of the look on the cashier’s face. It’s easy to feel rich with all those zeroes in your pocket, but beware, you may not notice that you accidentally blew a billion, until you don’t have the million or so necessary to buy a packet of chewing gum. Relax.
Spend a while in Laos and you may find that you start to adopt the dreamy expression worn by many of the inhabitants. Aside from the non-too-insistent pestering of hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers, pressure scarcely exists. Time elapses at the speed of a lolloping ox.
Thank or blame Communism. No reason for rush exists in a state where enterprise is vaguely frowned upon. Just like sex outside marriage. It is illegal for a man to sleep with a woman who is not his wife in this, the highly regulated People’s Democratic Republic, which even has a midnight curfew. Not that you would necessarily notice, because the curfew is enforced ever so softly and by the subtlest of soldieries.
Many travellers return repeatedly, hooked on a country that regularly wins prizes for being so laidback and enchanting, the epitome of oriental charm. Few observers have a bad word to say about Laos.
The so-called Jewel of the Mekong may, however, seem a bit constricted, given that it has a smaller population than urban Paris and few places to visit. Tourists flock to three main towns: Vientiane, the temple-infested cultural capital with the strange rhyming name, Luang Prabang, and Vang Vieng. First-class accommodation can be obtained in only the first two of these destinations – see the listings sections on page xxx for hotels, food, spas and nightlife.
While Vientiane and Luang Prabang ooze style and atmosphere, Vang Vieng is rather ramshackle. If you miss the TV show ‘Friends’ and like it broadcast louder than the thunder that regularly deafens the village, this is the place for you. Younger and/or boozier travellers will enjoy its wildly popular signature activity, ‘tubing’, which entails drifting drunkenly downriver, slotted inside a tractor tube. Tubing is worth trying once, even if you are t-total, just for the peacefully panoramic views of the mountain-lined Mekong tributary, the Nam Som.
Also for the amusement of watching the antics of the young and foolish, who swing from ropes across the river and do all sorts of inadvisable and dangerously daft things with ropes and ladders.
Alternatively, board the plane to Luang Prabang and be spellbound by the radiant temples and their saffron-clad incumbents. Watch the Mekong go by between drowsy spells half-reading a book in a river-bank restaurant, or just wander the streets absorbing the unspoiled antiquity.
Laos ranks as one of the world’s poorest countries. What a pity it is not easier to throw money around, there being a limit to the number of silk scarves, stone Buddhas and bottles of snake wine you want to stuff in your luggage. Unlike most of southeast Asia, this place makes you want to spend your money.
The biggest draws are the charm of the people, the French colonial influence on the architecture and the mystique that enshrouds the old Indochinese outpost.
Laos’ landmarks, for example Buddha Park, Vientiane’s twisted sculpture theatre, are hard to fathom. Then there is the Plain of Jars. Laos’ answer to Stonehenge, this Highlands plain is peppered with giant stone urns that defy conclusive explanation but serve as vehicles for informed speculation and fanciful guesswork. Be warned that this area contains a large amount of unexploded ordinance.
Laos has been conquered and occupied by pretty much every country on the planet except Monaco, in a history almost as blood-soaked as neighbouring Vietnam’s. After the communist Pathet Lao finally took complete control of the country in 1975 and sent the last King and Queen of Laos on a terminal visit to a re-education camp in a cave in the northeast of the country, they enforced a rigid closed-door policy that was to last more than a decade. The country has only recently opened up to tourism, so the inhabitants have yet to start to think of the visitor as no more than a mobile ATM. Laos is one of Asia’s last tourism frontiers, a country with a fascinating and largely intact cultural heritage, peopled by mostly friendly, funny and gentle folk. It can not be more highly recommended as a rewarding and relaxing destination for all travellers, regardless of the depth of their pockets.
Laos has great adventure sports possibilities, with fantastic rafting, mountain-biking, kayaking, trekking, rock-climbing and motor-biking available on www.greendiscoverylaos.com. Laos’ newest and greenest eco-adventure is at the Gibbon Experience, where guests stay in tree-top bungalows and use zip line cables to glide through the canopy of Bokeo Nature Reserve, in search of the elusive and playful Black Gibbon - www.gibbonx.org. Most visitors to Laos, however, do nothing much more energetic than knocking back a few cold Beer Lao while watching the sun set on the Mekong. Such people will simply explain the attraction of this lovely country lost in time by revealing the true meaning of ‘Laos PDR’:
Check Airfare Laos at http://www.laos-airtickets.com/Lao-Airlines/index.php
Imagine a sleepy French village on a drowsy afternoon at the end of summer. That is how Laos feels. Only less vibrant.
The land of crawling broadband and dawdling monks shatters – or at least quietly snuffs – the myth that southeast Asia is all tiger economy hustle and bustle. Every time a ripple of thunder breaks the stillness of the former French colony sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, the electricity goes down. Forget that fruit shake you ordered, which requires a blender’s input. Better make it a Beer Lao.
Careful how you handle the currency, as Kip are next to worthless, meaning that it’s necessary to keep track of lots of zeros.
All these surplus circles mean it’s easy to get confused and tender an insultingly small amount or a fortune, then only realise the gaffe because of the look on the cashier’s face. It’s easy to feel rich with all those zeroes in your pocket, but beware, you may not notice that you accidentally blew a billion, until you don’t have the million or so necessary to buy a packet of chewing gum. Relax.
Spend a while in Laos and you may find that you start to adopt the dreamy expression worn by many of the inhabitants. Aside from the non-too-insistent pestering of hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers, pressure scarcely exists. Time elapses at the speed of a lolloping ox.
Thank or blame Communism. No reason for rush exists in a state where enterprise is vaguely frowned upon. Just like sex outside marriage. It is illegal for a man to sleep with a woman who is not his wife in this, the highly regulated People’s Democratic Republic, which even has a midnight curfew. Not that you would necessarily notice, because the curfew is enforced ever so softly and by the subtlest of soldieries.
Many travellers return repeatedly, hooked on a country that regularly wins prizes for being so laidback and enchanting, the epitome of oriental charm. Few observers have a bad word to say about Laos.
The so-called Jewel of the Mekong may, however, seem a bit constricted, given that it has a smaller population than urban Paris and few places to visit. Tourists flock to three main towns: Vientiane, the temple-infested cultural capital with the strange rhyming name, Luang Prabang, and Vang Vieng. First-class accommodation can be obtained in only the first two of these destinations – see the listings sections on page xxx for hotels, food, spas and nightlife.
While Vientiane and Luang Prabang ooze style and atmosphere, Vang Vieng is rather ramshackle. If you miss the TV show ‘Friends’ and like it broadcast louder than the thunder that regularly deafens the village, this is the place for you. Younger and/or boozier travellers will enjoy its wildly popular signature activity, ‘tubing’, which entails drifting drunkenly downriver, slotted inside a tractor tube. Tubing is worth trying once, even if you are t-total, just for the peacefully panoramic views of the mountain-lined Mekong tributary, the Nam Som.
Also for the amusement of watching the antics of the young and foolish, who swing from ropes across the river and do all sorts of inadvisable and dangerously daft things with ropes and ladders.
Alternatively, board the plane to Luang Prabang and be spellbound by the radiant temples and their saffron-clad incumbents. Watch the Mekong go by between drowsy spells half-reading a book in a river-bank restaurant, or just wander the streets absorbing the unspoiled antiquity.
Laos ranks as one of the world’s poorest countries. What a pity it is not easier to throw money around, there being a limit to the number of silk scarves, stone Buddhas and bottles of snake wine you want to stuff in your luggage. Unlike most of southeast Asia, this place makes you want to spend your money.
The biggest draws are the charm of the people, the French colonial influence on the architecture and the mystique that enshrouds the old Indochinese outpost.
Laos’ landmarks, for example Buddha Park, Vientiane’s twisted sculpture theatre, are hard to fathom. Then there is the Plain of Jars. Laos’ answer to Stonehenge, this Highlands plain is peppered with giant stone urns that defy conclusive explanation but serve as vehicles for informed speculation and fanciful guesswork. Be warned that this area contains a large amount of unexploded ordinance.
Laos has been conquered and occupied by pretty much every country on the planet except Monaco, in a history almost as blood-soaked as neighbouring Vietnam’s. After the communist Pathet Lao finally took complete control of the country in 1975 and sent the last King and Queen of Laos on a terminal visit to a re-education camp in a cave in the northeast of the country, they enforced a rigid closed-door policy that was to last more than a decade. The country has only recently opened up to tourism, so the inhabitants have yet to start to think of the visitor as no more than a mobile ATM. Laos is one of Asia’s last tourism frontiers, a country with a fascinating and largely intact cultural heritage, peopled by mostly friendly, funny and gentle folk. It can not be more highly recommended as a rewarding and relaxing destination for all travellers, regardless of the depth of their pockets.
Laos has great adventure sports possibilities, with fantastic rafting, mountain-biking, kayaking, trekking, rock-climbing and motor-biking available on www.greendiscoverylaos.com. Laos’ newest and greenest eco-adventure is at the Gibbon Experience, where guests stay in tree-top bungalows and use zip line cables to glide through the canopy of Bokeo Nature Reserve, in search of the elusive and playful Black Gibbon - www.gibbonx.org. Most visitors to Laos, however, do nothing much more energetic than knocking back a few cold Beer Lao while watching the sun set on the Mekong. Such people will simply explain the attraction of this lovely country lost in time by revealing the true meaning of ‘Laos PDR’:
Check Airfare Laos at http://www.laos-airtickets.com/Lao-Airlines/index.php
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