Explore Laos

Enfolded by low, wooded hills, Luang Prabang languishes on a peninsula in the Mekong. Long regarded as the country’s pre-eminent cultural and religious capital, the town served for 15 centuries as the abode of Lao royalty. Stucco French villas and wooden colonnaded houses, festooned with scarlet bougainvillea and the foliage of overhanging mango and jackfruit trees, line its quiet streets, along with a wealth of delicately gilded temples and monasteries. After checking in to your hotel, climb the frangipani-lined steps leading to the hilltop pagoda of Wat Phu, from where the 360-degrees panorama extends to the surrounding mountains.

Begin your tour of the city sights at the former Royal Palace – a graceful fusion of Lao and European styles housing a glittering throne room and exhibitions of heirlooms. Afterwards, relax in one of the many stylish cafés or restaurants occupying the old quarter’s colonial-era mansions.

In the afternoon, take a trip into the countryside around the city to experience the life of traditional rice farming families. Try your hand at planting, harvesting or threshing – depending on the time of year – and visit local handicraft workshops to see bamboo weavers, blacksmiths, and sugar cane processors in action.

During your drive you get the chance to see some beautiful sceneries and landscapes as the mountains arise from deep valleys in northern Laos. We will take lunch in the little town of Pakmong.

On the way we have short stops for exploration and some village visits. Along the way some Hmong and Khamu villages are found. You arrive in Oudomxay in the afternoon - with some free time to see a bit of a typical quiet northern Laos town and visit the local market.

Along the way you can stop to visit villages of Akha and Khamu tribes. A short impression of their way of life will be a special experience for you. Lunch will be served along the way. In the afternoon you will arrive in Muang Khua. Depending on time you can still go out for some exploration within the small town.

You will see the local market and move on to the traditional longtail boat that waits for guests on the river. Then you make our way downstream on the Nam Ou river to Muang Ngoi, a little village with basic tourist infrastructure. Picnic lunch is on the way or in a little village. On the way we have different stops to visit Ban Hadsaphuai (Khmu village) and other places.

The countryside and landscape is stunning and a beautiful mixture between river, mountains and jungle. It is thought to be one of the most beautiful sights of this area with rocks, cliffs and amazing rock formations rising into the sky... Afternoon arrival in Muang Ngoi.

Early in the morning you start with your boat to go down the river for further visits along the way. You will stop to see a Lao Loum (Lowland Lao) village. After that you start for your trekking and activity day. It is a 2 hour trek to Ban Pha Yong (a Hmong ethnic village), then you continue to visit Ban Tad Lene (a Khmu village).

Along the way you find a picturesque scenery of mountains and rice paddies and rural life maybe like hundreds of years ago in the modern world. Lunch will be served along the way. After the Trek you return in the afternoon to Muang Ngoi.

You will take the boat for an hour and arrive in Nong Khiaw. Here you'll find time to explore a huge mountain on a picturesque mountain hike ( view point hikes; optional *). Our guide takes you into the forests for an amazing view into the surrounding valleys and mountains. In the evening you return to Nong Khiau where we stay overnight in a beautiful Lodge.

*change to a more moderate 3km walk / bike ride to Phatok cave is possible.

At Pak Ou, we change again to take a boat on the Mekong back to Luang Prabang. Arrival in Luang Prabang in the afternoon and transfer to your hotel. Remainder of your day is at leisure.

In the evening, you have the option to attend a recital by the Royal Ballet, whose dancers are dressed in vibrant brocaded silk, elaborate headdresses and masks, accompanied by live music from a traditional orchestra – a magical experience.

Take the opportunity of your final evening in Luang Prabang to shop for souvenirs in the atmospheric night market, which runs along Sisavangvong Road from Wat Mai. Starting around 5pm and winding up by 11pm, it is staffed mostly by local Hmong minority people, who descend from the surrounding hills to sell handicrafts such as ceramics, screen-printed ‘Beerlao’ t-shirts, silk scarves, hand-woven blankets and opium pipes.

You’ll arrive in Phonsavan early enough to explore the local market, where you’ll come across stalls and small shops specializing in Hmong Embroidery, mulberry paper parasols made in the nearby village of Ban Mixay, and wooden spoons and other trinkets fashioned from war scrap. Open until 8pm, the Navang Craft Centre is a family business producing woodcrafts made from scented Long Leng timber (Fujian Cypress).

The country’s most famous archaeological site, the so-called ‘Plain of Jars’, comprises around 100 different locations, dispersed over the Xieng Khouang Plateau, a wide area of grassy uplands and low hills to the east of Phonsavan. Literally thousands of the famous carved stone jars have been discovered, grouped into clusters of up to 400 pieces ranging in size from 18” to 9 ft (50cm to 3m). These enigmatic objects are thought to have served as funerary urns. Viewed in the hour before sunset, when the surrounding grasslands glow orange, the jars form a mesmerizing spectacle.

Nestled on the banks of the Nam Song River against an awesome backdrop of lofty limestone ridges and peaks, Van Vieng is the adventure capital of Laos. The wooded slopes, karst caves and broad, green river provide spectacular terrain for a range of different outdoor activities, from trekking and kayaking to climbing, mountain biking and – most famously – ‘tubing’ (drifting downstream on inflated tractor inner tubes).

Visits to the many, deep and convoluted show caves in the area provide targets for excursions from this popular town on the Nam Song. Numerous adventure sports are also on offer for those in need of an adrenaline fix!

Chao Anouvong Park facing the Mekong is the best place in the city to get your bearings, and it’s a particularly pleasant spot in the evening. Join the strollers on the promenade enjoying the tropical colours swirling in the water, then settle at one of the cafés for a glass of cold Beerlao. To round the day off, head over to celebrate your arrival meal at Makphet, one of our favourite restaurants in the city: the sesame and peanut-encrusted dumplings with hibiscus syrup are sublime.

Compact enough to explore on foot or by bicycle, the historic heart of Vientiane retains a crop of vibrant Buddhist wats, including the resplendent Haw Pha Kaew, a former royal temple turned museum that now holds a world-class collection of bronze Buddhas and Khmer stone stelae. Further out of town, the gilded Pha That Luang is the pre-eminent national monument of Laos and symbol of Buddhist devotion. Before sunset, stroll through the grid of orderly, tree-lined boulevards and backstreets hugging the river, where the peeling stucco facades and weathered shutters of old colonial villas offer rich pickings for photographers.

The forest here is one of the most beautiful and rewarding to visit as it hosts a range of large and small animals, reptiles and mammals including of course the famous white-cheeked gibbons. You will also find villages dedicated to indigious ethnic groups such as the Hmong, Khmu and Yao that are situated inside the periphery of the park and equally protecred.

Your TransIndus consultant can arrange a visit with the Laos Conservation Trust for Wildlife. The experience would include a 3 km trek through Phou Khao Khuay National Park, where guests can see rescued bears, deer, and gibbons, with a chance of spotting wild langurs.

• Please note that the trek involves steep terrain and may not be suitable for young children, elderly guests, or those with limited fitness. For younger or elderly guests, we can offer an alternative Bear Forest Walk, which takes approximately 1.5 hours and covers 1.75 km.

Sleepy Champasak in southern Laos, near the borders with Thailand and Cambodia, serves as a springboard for visits to the UNSCO-listed Vat Phou temple and Si Phon Don area of the Mekong. Our preferred accommodation here is La Folie Lodge, a gorgeous hideaway on an island in the river, which guests reach by catamaran. From the jetty, you step into a flower-filled garden enfolding a dozen pretty stilted bungalows with polished wood floors and beautiful Lao silk bedspreads. The views from the pool deck to the nearby river beach and sacred peak beyond are spellbinding, particularly at sunset, when herds of water buffalo plod home across the sand.

In this part of southern Laos the Mekong broadens to a staggering 14km (9 miles), its widest stretch on the river’s course between Tibet and the South China Sea. An archipelago of rocky islets speckle the water, supporting a population of rice resilient farmers, whose paddy fields form splashes of brilliant green against the dun-coloured river banks. Upstream, one of the most formidable impediments to full navigation of the river is the mighty Khone Phapeng Falls near the Cambodian border – the longest on the river and a jaw-dropping spectacle, especially during the rainy season.

A sprawling, stepped Khmer-Hindu temple at the foot of Mount Phou Kao, the Vat Phou complex ranks among the finest and most evocative pre-Angkorian sites in Southeast Asia. The ruins retain exquisite stone carvings of Lord Shiva and a shrine room in which the Lingam is bathed by the waters of a natural spring.

After lunch, drive up to the the Bolaven Plateau, a lush, fertile upland filled with waterfalls, spice plantations, cardamom and coffee groves. Ethnic minority people make up the majority of its scattered population today and their villages, along with a couple of spectacular waterfalls, provide the focus of the afternoon’s excursion.