Laos

Laos is Southeast Asia's only landlocked country, and the Mekong River runs through it from north to south, revered as the "Mother River". Luang Prabang's dawn alms ceremony has continued for centuries: saffron-robed monks file through the streets while kneeling devotees place balls of sticky rice into their bowls, and the whole old town wakes in the morning mist. The Lao people believe in Theravada Buddhism and are gentle and uncontentious by temperament; "bo pen nyang" (never mind) is the phrase you hear most often. The coffee and baguettes left by French colonial rule sit alongside local sticky rice and laap (Lao meat salad) in the markets; the colours of handwoven sinh skirts in the night markets are the gentlest footnote to Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Sticky rice, carried in small woven bamboo baskets and eaten by hand, is the most everyday warmth of Lao life.

Laos has three seasons — cool, hot and rainy. November to February, the cool season, is dry and pleasant, with temperatures around 20°C, best for Luang Prabang and the Four Thousand Islands in the south. March to May is the hot, sultry season; in mid-April the whole country celebrates Pi Mai, the Lao New Year water festival, most grandly in Luang Prabang. May to October is the rainy season, when the Mekong rises and Kuang Si Falls is at its fullest and most emerald, though some mountain roads become difficult to travel. That Luang Festival in Vientiane, in the twelfth Lao month (around November in the Gregorian calendar), is the country's grandest religious festival of the year; the dawn alms-giving in Luang Prabang is at its most solemn in the cool season, and observers should keep their distance and stay quiet. The rainy season is also when the rice fields are at their greenest, and the country around Vang Vieng, ringed by mountains and water, is like a painting.

Lao culture begins with the 14th-century Lan Xang kingdom ("Kingdom of a Million Elephants"); King Fa Ngum established Theravada Buddhism as the state religion, and Luang Prabang's Wat Xieng Thong and Mount Phousi have been spiritual coordinates ever since. The Lao language belongs to the Tai-Kadai language family, and folk epics and palm-leaf manuscripts are literary treasures; every village worships its guardian spirits (phi), and Buddhism and animism coexist peacefully in daily life. The wars of the 20th century made Laos one of the most heavily bombed countries per capita in the world, and unexploded ordnance still affects farming today — only by understanding this history can one understand the deep-seated Lao cherishing of peace and their slow pace of life.

Lan Xang kingdom, dawn alms-giving, the Mekong, slow living

Dawn alms-giving in Luang Prabang, Kuang Si Falls, a Mekong sunset cruise, That Luang in Vientiane, the karst scenery of Vang Vieng

• Wikipedia: Laos