Laos Highlights

LAOS

VIDEO COMPILATION

GENERAL INFORMATION

For more details, blogs & pictures click here https://www.doubledutchworldsafari.au/our-journey/asia-2/laos/

General information

They use the slogan “Laos simply beautiful” and it is. The main attractions are Buddhist culture, colonial architecture, ancient temples, hill tribes and amazing scenery. Most interesting villages are well away from the major road (route 13) in Laos and only accessible via dirt roads/tracks.

Laos is the only landlocked country in South East Asia. After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Communist Pathet Lao movement came to power, seeing an end to the civil war. Lao people are 55% of the population, Mon-Khmer and Hmong groups around 45% of the population. Laos was a key part of the Vietnam war as parts of Laos where invaded by North Vietnam to secure supply routes for the war against South Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all the second world war, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in the world. This accounted to nearly 1000KG for every person in Laos. More than 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year still today, due to the particularly heavy impact of cluster bombs during this war. Laos has no railways and the rivers are a very important means of transport in Laos.