• ISBN13: 9781843535065
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Rough Guide to Laos is your definitive guide to this fascinating country. The 24-page full-colour introduction highlights all the ‘things not to miss’, from the Buddhist temples of Louang Phabang to the French colonial architecture of Vientiane, Laos'' capital. The guide reviews all the top places to stay, eat and drink to suit every budget and the brand-new ‘author’s picks’ feature highlights the very best options. Whether you want to go elephant-trekking in the jungle or explore the caves at Vang Viang this guide has all the practical advice you will need. There are detailed chapters on Laos’ history, religion, art and culture and maps and plans for every region.

The Rough Guide to Laos is like having a local friend plan your trip.

Less than a decade ago, Laos was more or less unknown to Western travellers. Other than a brief period during the 1960s, when the diminutive Buddhist kingdom became a player in the Vietnam War, it has remained a backwater – a situation that only intensified after the 1975 revolution and the years of xenophobic communist government that ensued, when the former French colony was largely forgotten, at least by the West. However, when the Lao People’s Democratic Republic reluctantly reopened its doors to the outside world in the 1990s, after its major source of aid dried up with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a trickle of visitors braved the travel restrictions and exorbitant visa costs to have a look.

What they found was a poverty-stricken country stunted by war and politics and still doing things the old-fashioned way. The mighty Mekong and its tributaries were still the principal conduits for trade and, for much of the population, a pair of legs was the chief means of transport. Only a handful of provinces were wired for electricity, and Vientiane, the capital, was a sleepy town of tree-lined avenues, decaying French villas and a surviving opium den or two. Tourist infrastructure was almost nonexistent, and the very inadequacies that made travel in Laos unique were also causes of exasperation.

In the past few years, however, Laos has become much more accessible. Visa prices have come down and restrictions on travel have been all but lifted. In the major towns and cities there is good-value accommodation and a surprisingly diverse array of cuisines on offer. Conditions in the countryside, however, remain primitive and challenging, but travellers willing to brave difficult roads and basic, candlelit accommodation will be rewarded with sights of a landscape and people not much changed from those that greeted French explorers a century ago.

Laos’s lifeline is the Mekong River, which runs the length of the landlocked country, at times bisecting it and at others serving as a boundary with Thailand. The rugged Annamite Mountains also run much of the country’s length and historically have acted as a buffer against Vietnam, with which Laos shares its eastern border. Much of Laos is forested and, despite the ongoing use of the slash-and-burn technique of agriculture, there are still considerable tracts of dense forest inhabited by myriad animal species. Tigers and other majestic cats, all but vanished from neighbouring countries, still stalk the hinterlands of Laos, and new species of large mammals are still being discovered, such as the deer-like soala or spindlehorn. There is even an endangered colony of rare freshwater dolphins inhabiting an isolated stretch of the Mekong.

• ISBN13: 9781898323228
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed