Laos – Land of a Million Elephants

Laos is diverse and rich in scenery and activities, catering to the needs of most adventurers, culture seekers, Buddhist aficionados, and even the foodies! Laos used to be known as Lan Xang, meaning “The Land of a Million Elephants”. After years of war and loss of habitat, there are not many left…

Laos is more renowned as “the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population” than as a popular tourist destination.

During the Vietnam War, the US Army dropped about two million tons of ordnance during 580,000 bombing missions, mostly in the western region of the north and the entire southern region of Laos. This is equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, starting in 1964 and lasting until 1973. All this in an effort to disrupt supply lines being used by the communist Vietnamese forces.

Though the bombing ended in Laos in 1973, over the next two years a Vietnam and Soviet-backed civil war raged and brought the communists of the Pathet Lao political party into power.

Once you have travelled through this narrow country, which shares a border with Vietnam of over 2,000 km long, and a border with Thailand of almost 1,800 km long, you will know that the war is not talked about. Except for the estimated 80 million cluster bombs that did not detonate, most of which are still buried in the jungles and farmlands, few signs remain of the war.

Most travellers who have visited Laos are left with memories of friendly people, colourful temples, monasteries and monks, the mighty Mekong River, dense tropical jungles, and rice paddy workers surrounded by imposing limestone rocks. While I have come to see it all, my calling was to share a few days in the lives of the ethnically diverse tribes, the monks and their monasteries, all in harmony with the Mekong River.