Laos

The kingdom of Lan Xang — "Million Elephants" — ruled much of the middle Mekong from the fourteenth century, with Luang Prabang and later Vientiane as royal capitals and Theravada Buddhism as the state faith. It fragmented in the eighteenth century into rival principalities that fell under Siamese domination, and then, from the 1890s, under French control as part of French Indochina.

Laos gained full independence in 1953 as a kingdom, but was quickly drawn into the wider Indochina conflict. From 1964 to 1973 the United States dropped some two million tons of bombs on Laos — more than on Germany and Japan combined in the Second World War — in a "Secret War" aimed at the Ho Chi Minh Trail and in support of a CIA-backed army fighting the communist Pathet Lao. Around a third of the bombs failed to explode.

The Pathet Lao won in 1975, abolished the 600-year-old monarchy, and founded the Lao People's Democratic Republic, a one-party communist state still in power and closely tied to Vietnam and, increasingly, China. The economy has opened gradually, driven by hydropower dams on the Mekong and its tributaries, mining, and the new Chinese-built railway — which has also loaded Laos with debt, and the country has faced a currency and inflation crisis in recent years.

Lowland Lao society is Theravada Buddhist, and the temple (wat), the saffron-robed monk, and merit-making shape the calendar and the townscape. The dawn alms round — laypeople offering rice to a line of monks — is a daily ritual, most famously in Luang Prabang. Older animist beliefs persist in the baci string-tying ceremony, which calls the khwan (life spirits) back to the body at weddings, departures, and welcomes.

Laos is ethnically diverse, with dozens of upland groups — Hmong, Khmu, Akha, and others — who have their own languages, dress, and often animist or ancestral religion, living alongside the Buddhist lowlanders. Weaving, especially Lao silk and cotton with intricate supplementary-weft patterns, and the bamboo mouth organ (khaen) and mor lam singing are the signature arts.

The pace is famously unhurried, and bò pen nyang — "no problem, never mind" — is a genuine cultural attitude. Modesty in dress and behaviour, especially at temples, and removing shoes before entering homes and shrines are expected.

Vientiane, on the Mekong facing Thailand, is a small, low-key capital of tree-lined streets, temples, and a growing skyline. Luang Prabang, upriver, lives largely off tourism and its heritage status; Pakse in the south is the hub for the Bolaven Plateau and the 4,000 Islands. The great majority of Lao are rural, farming rice in the valleys and along the rivers.

Laos is one of the poorest countries in the region, and rural infrastructure is thin. The economy leans on selling hydroelectricity to neighbours, on mining, on agriculture, and on Chinese investment and the railway, with heavy external debt. Many young Lao cross to Thailand for work.

Daily life follows the farming seasons, the Buddhist calendar, the market, and the river — the Mekong is transport, food, and livelihood for millions.

Lao food is fresh, herbal, and often fiery, and eaten with khao niaw — sticky rice — rolled into balls by hand. The national dish is laap (larb), a salad of minced meat or fish with herbs, lime, chilli, toasted rice powder, and fish sauce. Tam mak hoong, a pounded green-papaya salad, is eaten with almost everything and is spicier and more pungent than its Thai cousin.

Khao soi (a northern noodle soup, different from the Thai dish), or lam (a bitter Luang Prabang stew), grilled river fish and chicken, jaew chilli dips, and khao piak sen (a comforting rice-noodle soup) round out the menu. The French left behind good baguettes, sold as khao jii sandwiches, and strong coffee.

Lao coffee from the Bolaven Plateau is excellent; lao-lao (rice whisky) and lao hai (jar wine sipped through straws) are the traditional drinks, alongside Beerlao, the ubiquitous national lager.

Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage town on a peninsula between two rivers, is the highlight — gilded monasteries such as Wat Xieng Thong, the former Royal Palace, French-colonial shophouses, the climb up Mount Phousi, the night market, and the dawn alms procession. Just outside, the tiered turquoise pools of Kuang Si Falls, a bear rescue centre, and the Buddha-filled Pak Ou caves up the Mekong fill easy days.

The classic arrival is the two-day slow boat down the Mekong from the Thai border at Huay Xai, overnighting in Pakbeng. Vientiane has the golden Pha That Luang stupa, the Patuxai victory arch, Wat Sisaket, and the sobering COPE centre on unexploded ordnance and its victims. Vang Vieng, between the two, sits among karst peaks, caves, and lagoons, and has shed most of its old riverside-party reputation.

Further afield: the Plain of Jars near Phonsavan, clusters of mysterious Iron Age stone jars scattered across a landscape that was heavily bombed — a UNESCO site where you must keep to cleared paths; the Bolaven Plateau in the south, with coffee farms and the Tad Fane and Tad Yuang waterfalls; and Si Phan Don, the "4,000 Islands," where the Mekong braids around river islands, past the Khone Phapheng rapids and the last of the Irrawaddy dolphins.