The Rough Guide to Laos (Travel Guide eBook)

Description

Discover Laos with the most incisive and entertaining guidebook on the market. Rough Guides' expert authors have done all the hard work for you: seeking out the best guesthouses, sampling sizzling street food and trekking to remote hill villages, then writing it all up with our trademark blend of humour, insight and practical advice. Whether you plan to lounge on laidback islands in the Mekong river, explore ancient Khmer temples or tour the Bolaven Plateau's coffee plantations, this new edition of The Rough Guide to Laos will show you ideal places to sleep, eat, drink and shop along the way, with options to suit every budget. The Rough Guide to Laos includes stunning photography and colour-coded, easy-to-use maps, making finding your way around sleepy villages and busy cities a breeze.

Sujets

• Laos

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780241326183
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 45 Mo

Extrait

CONTENTS HOW TO USE INTRODUCTION Where to go When to go Things not to miss Itineraries BASICS Getting there Visas and red tape Getting around Accommodation Food and drink Festivals Health The media Sports and outdoor activities Alternative therapies Culture and etiquette Crime and personal safety Shopping Travelling with children Travel essentials THE GUIDE Vientiane and the northwest Luang Prabang The northeast The far north South central Laos The far south CONTEXTS History Religion and belief systems Arts and temple architecture Laos’s ethnic mosaic The environment Literature and myths Books Lao Glossary MAPS AND SMALL PRINT Introduction Introduction Cover Table of Contents
HOW TO USE THIS ROUGH GUIDE EBOOK
This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when you re on the road.
From the table of contents , you can click straight to the main sections of the ebook. Start with the Introduction , which gives you a flavour of Laos, with details of what to see, what not to miss, itineraries and more - everything you need to get started. This is followed by Basics , with pre-departure tips and practical information, such as flight details and health advice. The guide chapters offer comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the whole of Laos, including area highlights and full-colour maps featuring all the sights and listings. Finally, Contexts fills you in on history, religion, arts, temple architecture, literature and myths plus the environment and includes a handy Language section.
Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the dedicated map section , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps - in these cases, you can opt to zoom left/top or zoom right/bottom or view the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.
Throughout the guide, we ve flagged up our favourite places - a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric caf , a special restaurant - with the author pick icon . You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access to everything you ll need for your time away.
INTRODUCTION TO LAOS
Often overlooked in favour of its better-known neighbours, landlocked Laos remains one of Southeast Asia’s most beguiling destinations. Caught in the middle of the two Indochina wars and long isolated from the rest of the world, the country retains a slow, rustic charm, and its people – incredibly laidback and friendly, even by Asian standards – are undoubtedly one of the highlights of any visit.


Laos’s lifeline is the Mekong river , which runs the length of the country, at times bisecting it and at others serving as a boundary with Thailand; the rugged Annamite mountains historically have acted as a buffer against Vietnam, with which Laos shares its eastern border. Most people visit the country as part of a wider trip around Southeast Asia, often entering from Thailand and following the Mekong further south. However, Laos alone rewards further exploration, and with a little more time it’s not hard to feel like you’re visiting places where few Westerners venture. From the forest-clad mountains of the north to the islands of the far south, there’s enough here to keep you occupied for weeks and still feel as though you’ve barely scratched the surface.
  For such a small country, Laos is surprisingly diverse in terms of its people. Colourfully dressed hill tribes populate the higher elevations, while in the lowland river valleys, coconut palms sway over the Buddhist monasteries of the ethnic Lao. The country also retains some of the French influence it absorbed during colonial days: the familiar smell of freshly baked bread and coffee mingles with exotic local aromas in morning markets, and many of the old shop houses of its larger towns now (appropriately) house French restaurants.
  The effects of the wars and the communist government are unmistakeable. UXO (unexploded ordnance) remains a real risk in the countryside – it is vital that you stick to well-trodden paths – while the human rights of ordinary citizens are severely restricted. Laos also remains heavily dependent on its neighbours for all manner of products; indeed, in some parts of the country, the local markets stock more Chinese and Vietnamese goods than Lao.
  Change, though, is coming. Over the last decade tourist numbers have steadily risen – albeit remaining far lower than in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam – a fact that is particularly evident in places like Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. Meanwhile, a series of highly contentious hydroelectric projects are transforming huge swaths of Laos.
  However, whether you’re riding through the countryside on a rickety old bus crammed with sacks of rice and blaring local pop tunes, sailing down the Mekong past staggeringly beautiful scenery , or being dragged by a stranger to celebrate a birth over too much beer and lào-láo (a rice spirit), it’s hard not to be won over by this utterly fascinating country and its people.

FACT FILE The Lao People’s Democratic Republic , as it’s officially known, is Southeast Asia’s only landlocked country, and is bordered by Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. Covering more than 236,000 square kilometres, Laos is roughly the same size as the UK, yet has a population of just under seven million. Per capita, Laos is the most bombed nation in history. Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped over two million tonnes of ordnance on the country – more than the total amount that fell across Europe during World War II. A constitutional monarchy until 1976, Laos is now a one-party dictatorship and one of the world’s last official communist states. Look out for Socialist Realist posters and the hammer-and-sickle flags that adorn buildings across the country. The official language is Lao, a tonal language closely related to Thai, although the written scripts differ. More than eighty languages are still spoken across Laos by ethnic tribes. Despite historic ties to France, English is now the most widely spoken European language. The country’s top-selling brew, Beerlao , is made using local rice. Having won international awards, it’s now exported to at least sixteen countries worldwide.

Where to go
Set on a broad curve of the Mekong, Vientiane is a modest capital city by Southeast Asian standards. It lacks the frenetic buzz of Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok, but has transformed itself since the 1990s and is now home to an increasingly cosmopolitan food scene. Robbed of its finest temples in battles with Siam long ago, Vientiane is better suited to long lunches and lazy walks by the Mekong than it is for breakneck tours of monuments and museums. Few tourists passing through the capital miss a chance for a half-day journey out to Xieng Khuan , whose riverside meadow is filled with mammoth religious statues, one of Laos’s more bizarre sights.
  From Vientiane, it makes sense to head north to Vang Vieng , a once-sleepy town set in a landscape of glimmering green paddies and sawtoothed karst hills. A fantastic spot for caving, kayaking, rock climbing and long walks in the countryside, the town was notorious for its wild tubing scene but, though it remains a party spot for young backpackers, things have calmed down significantly in recent years. South of here the mountainous old Royal Road to Luang Prabang rollercoasters through some of Laos’s most stunning scenery. The more intrepid can indulge in a muddy expedition through Laos’s northwestern frontier, stopping off in the remote outpost of Sayaboury , the site of a large portion of the country’s diminishing elephant population.
  The gilded temples and restored French–Indochinese shop houses of tiny, cultured Luang Prabang possess a spellbinding majesty that make this Laos’s most enticing townscape. Though the city is filled with tourists, the dusty side streets, Mekong views and quiet mornings still lend plenty of charm. The majority of visitors combine a stay here with a couple of day-trips to the sacred Pak Ou Buddha Caves , two riverside grottoes brimming with thousands of Buddha images, and to beautiful Kuang Si waterfall , the perfect spot for a refreshing dip on a hot day.
  A few hours north up the emerald Nam Ou river from Luang Prabang is the quiet town of Nong Khiaw , picturesquely surrounded by towering limestone peaks and an excellent base for trekking and kayaking in the region. Just a little further up the river, idyllic Muang Ngoi Neua is a popular travellers’ spot; it’s hard to drag yourself away from the temptation of spending your days here soaking up the views from a hammock. Following the river even further north is one of the highlights of a trip to Laos, passing through stunning scenery on resolutely local boats to get to Phongsali , from which you can explore further into the isolated far north, or join an overnight trek to local hill-tribe villages.
  Improved roads mean that it’s now a lot easier to visit the far north , which boasts more spectacular landscape and a patchwork of animist tribal peoples. The easygoing town of Luang Nam