Laos was a country I knew very little about but wanted to visit. I have been to almost all of its bordering countries and that made me want to tick it off my list. The country’s name Laos, means Land of a Million Elephants.

As I was in Thailand for a few days meeting up with my friends, I figured that it was time to scratch the itch and get Laos ticked off my list. It also happened to be the first new country I have visited in 2024 and my 66^th country visited!

I was a bit surprised while flying over the country. It’s very mountainous which usually means very green, but everything looked dry and dusty. At first glance, it wasn’t what I had expected. But once I got out of the plane, I realised why… I arrived in the middle of dry season and Jesus, this place was hot as hell!

Everyone needs a visa to enter the country but it’s fairly easy to get, costs around $42 if you’re a westerner and can be done at the airport on arrival. You’ll need two passport photos for the application or they’ll charge you an extra dollar to take them at the visa counter.

I’ve filled out many visa forms in my time and quickly realised that this one was all about raising revenue for the government, nothing more. I filled in the form, handed the immigration officer a crisp $100 bill, collected my change (more on that later) and headed to the arrivals area to collect my bags. All in all, it took about 15 minutes from the time I landed to clear the terminal, which was pretty nice.

I think this place had the cheapest data plan I’ve seen anywhere on my travels; I bought a 7-day sim card with 3GB of data for $2.50! I hired, what I thought was my taxi from the taxi dispatch, but it turns out it was more like a mini-bus that took multiple passengers and I had to wait until it was full before being taken to my hotel. Funnily enough, he dropped me off at the wrong location, but it was a minute away so not much of a bother.

The hotel or Villa as they call it sat on the bank of the Mekong River, but as it was dry season, the water level was half its usual height according to the hotel manager. Luang Prabang is small, so small that I managed to walk around the whole town in an hour, before sitting down for dinner and a view of the sunset, which to be fair was pretty spectacular.

After dinner, I stumbled across a travel agent that offered several day tours and chose a full-day tour that included a trip to an Elephant sanctuary and a visit to their famous Kuang Si waterfalls.

I’ve done the elephant thing in Phuket before and didn’t enjoy it. Back then, I regretted doing it, within a minute of going on the ride. The elephants were chained to posts and had heavy, thick saddles tied around their abdomens that I knew were not removed often if removed at all. The way the handlers treated the animals, hitting and poking them with massive metal hooks/rods disgusted me. So much so, that when we returned to the camp, I felt compelled to buy a bunch of bananas and feed them to the one I rode.

But here in Luang Prabang, it was different. 13 elephants were living at this sanctuary and they were allowed to roam around the reserve to an extent. They showed no visible marks or bruises, had no saddles and responded to commands from the handlers. There were options of learning about the animals and going for a 1-hour river and jungle ride, or a full-day experience that included riding and bathing the animals and cleaning their stable. I chose the former, I wasn’t going to pay to clean up animal poop, I already do that at home with my dog.

My elephant was a little unruly and wanted to do what he wanted to do. That made it a little tricky controlling him and the handler kept shouting the commands until he responded. Once we entered the river, he decided that he was going to get up close and personal with one of the other elephants, and they both started ‘shouting’ if that’s what you call it. That scared the shit out of me and the woman riding the other elephant in front of me. Funnily enough, her husband was on the biggest of the 3 elephants, but he couldn’t be arsed to do more than take his own time, while our two were purring and ‘shouting’ at each other.

The afternoon was capped off with a visit to one of the most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a few. The turquoise colour of the water was unreal.

There were many natural pools to swim in but I didn’t go in for a dip. Partially because I couldn’t be bothered to change clothes again after the elephants and also because I got fed up of the Chinese tourists. I made the mistake of taking a pic with one of them, who asked, but that opened the floodgates to hordes trying to sneakily take pics of me, or sticking their phones in my face and worse yet, touching me as if I was some of black buddha!

Day 2 consisted of a walk around the town and visiting a few of the UNESCO Heritage sites and temples, as well as a long boat ride down the Mekong River and a visit to the bustling night market. There were two special moments; being asked to take a pic with a group of young monks (one took the pic, while the other two stood with me), and taking a poop on the long boat in the tiniest bathroom ever, with an amazing view.

I don’t think I’ll ever take a poop in a more scenic setting, but it was also an excellent reminder that I should not eat the fish here!

While paying for dinner, I pulled out one of the $20 notes that the immigration officer had handed me as part of my change for paying for the visa. The waitress left and came back minutes later saying she was unable to accept it and showed me a black mark on the bill. The sneaky immigration officer gave me a fake $20 bill as part of my change! Sadly, there was nothing I could do about it. The cow had scammed me. I did think about paying a street vendor with it, but that’s not me, I couldn’t do that to them.

The more I thought about being scammed, the more I appreciated the hustle. What better way to launder your counterfeit money than by handing it to unsuspecting tourists at your official government job? Well done, Mama, well done!

In the blink of an eye, the two days had flown by and it was time for me to head to Bali via Bangkok. This time I hired a tuktuk to take me to the airport and he was over the moon when I gave him $10 for a $4 ride. $10 converts to 220,000 Laos KIP.

3 days in this sleepy backwater called Luang Prabang is good enough. It’s an interesting place, with a chilled, laidback vibe and amazingly friendly locals. I’m glad I made the decision to visit and ticked it off the list. Looking at the travel guides from other bloggers, there’s a hell of a lot more to do here. Which means I’ll probably make another visit at some point.

If you’re in the vicinity, it’s worth the trip there, the lifestyle is far different to that of Thailand, Cambodia or Singapore. It’s very slow-paced and a good place to chill and reset.