Laos Final Thoughts

Laos is Bill's favourite country so far
Bank machines are like playing the slot machine, you put your card in and get no money out, but it comes out of your account (take cash or do a cash advance only)
The food was great
People are very laid back
Beautiful hills and mountains
Surprised by the expense, but we managed to stay ahead of budget
Great place for nature lovers, not as much development culturally
Only 400,000 people in the capital city
Needs a lot of infrastructure work - time consuming to travel by land and river
No police presence, but we saw a lot of AK47s
Many trees are being stripped
Shoes off in temples, businesses and hotels; only 1 hotel that we could wear our shoes indoors
People are poor, but dress well, are clean and happy
Good size portions of food, you can even get whole chicken breasts and prawns
English was not as good
People are not pushy
Luang Prabang is our favourite city on our trip so far, it is very pretty
Luang Nam Tha is great for trekking and biking
Vieng Vang is great for water sports
Vientiane was disappointing, we may have enjoyed it more if we had been able to go to the museums or take a tour or go to the higher quality restaurants (everything closed due to New Year aka Pi Mai
Vientaine was more like a large town than a capital city