There’s something about Laos

Approximately 2 and a half years ago I spent a few weeks in Laos trekking in the villages of the Northern part of the country, then flying from the sleepy Vientiane to the sizzling hot Ho Chi Minh City and continuing my way up to the Sa Pa area in Vietnam. Somehow I never came to publish the photos I made from Laos and Vietnam, except the ones I took with the Holga camera. But better late than never, I like to think, so here is Laos in photos.

Laos was an interesting country in many aspects. Most surprisingly it was the one country about which travellers didn’t seem to agree upon. Some said they couldn’t wait to cross the border from the landlocked Laos to its more fascinating neighbours by the seaside, some were puzzled how anybody could not simply adore this country. There’s something about Laos which is really “same-same” as they like to wrap up more or less everything in Asia but still something completely different that is hard to pinpoint.

Laos is full of contrasts and I guess that your opinion about it really depends on where exactly you go there. The country as I had imagined it to be, I found in the North of Laos. Looking back I saw some pretty amazing villages there where the ethnic minorities still reside as they did hundreds of years ago, living in their bamboo huts and depending on slash and burn agriculture to get by in their everyday life. One can only hope that the road to China does not affect their way of life too soon, since otherwise it would inevitably leave a mark on their cultural identity.

The photos below bring back the memories of these particular moments captured. The market in the early morning. Cycling around near the Chinese border and ending up going to a funeral in a hmong village. Admiring the small hills and the caves they hid inside, the lush green landscapes with water buffalos lounging in the river, the endless watermelon fields and the pink sun setting in the smokey sky. The French baguettes and the monks in their orange robes. And all the people in the rural villages and travellers I came across. It was a good journey.

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