Now a high-speed railway has arrived.
What changes will it bring, and what will it take away?
The river and the rail: one representing Laoss past, the other its future.
From left: Buddhist monks cross a tributary of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang, Laos; a view of the central shrine at Luang Prabang’s Wat Xieng Thong.Credit:Kevin West
It was a fast-moving trip.
Laotian roads are measured in rattles and jolts.
Now what was once a full day on the snake road whooshes by in half a morning.
From left: The Luang Namtha Stupa, the province’s main Buddhist temple. The region’s numerous ethnic groups include both Buddhists and animists; a woman from the Tai Dam community wears traditional dress for a harvest festival near the village of Luang Namtha, in northern Laos.Kevin West
Announcements came in Lao, Mandarin, and English.
All was gleam and polish, video screens and QR codes.
Laos remains largely a place of villages, of tradition, folklore, and handicrafts.
From left: The pagoda-style station in Luang Prabang, built for the 2021 opening of the country’s new high-speed rail; prehistoric megaliths at the Plain of Jars, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the south of Laos.Kevin West
What happens in the future?
That is the question for all Laotian people.
The dry season comes to Laos in the winter months.
From left: A staffer ferries a drink from the Rosewood Luang Prabang’s Elephant Bridge Bar; French-colonial storefronts line Luang Prabang’s Sisavangvong Road, which is named after a former king of Laos.Kevin West
It is a time of dust and ash, of noontime haze and bloodshot sunsets.
Fires smolder across the countryside as farmers burn their fields to clear stubble and return nutrients to the soil.
In Luang Prabang the smell of smoke greeted me, lurked about, and stowed away in my luggage.
From left: Laos is home to 49 officially recognized ethnic groups. This village near Luang Namtha belongs to the Akha community; rambutans and other locally grown fruits for sale at Luang Namtha’s morning market.Kevin West
The signature flavors of Laotian cooking are earthy, murky, and swampy.
Lao people eat everything, Xai agreed.
Theres a saying in Lao, children of the rice, she said.
From left: At ViengTara Resort, in Vang Vieng, a walkway connects guest rooms built on stilts above the rice fields; Buddha statues adorn the altar of Wat Mai, in Luang Prabang.Kevin West
We are all children of the rice.
His plan was to go to college.
Had he been one of the drummers?
From left: Khao soi noodles at the Rosewood’s restaurant, the Great House; a hilltop tent at the Rosewood, where rooms were designed by Southeast Asia interiors star Bill Bensley.Kevin West
By now the shadows were lengthening, and jet lag was catching up with me.
Xai steered me back toward the hotel through the gathering night market.
Today, the bill might as well be wallpaper.
From left: A sugarcane plantation in Luang Namtha. The cash crop is grown for export to China, often replacing subsistence rice farming; the central shrine at Wat Xieng Thong, a temple in Luang Prabang, was established in the 1500s.Kevin West
After a currency free fall during the pandemic, one kip is worth about 1/20,000th of a U.S. dollar.
A visitor withdrawing even a modest amount from an ATM receives a sheaf of 100,000-kip bills an instant millionaire.
Laos is a multicultural country with 49 officially recognized ethnic groups and many subgroups.
From left: A forest walk with elephants at MandaLao, a private conservation center outside Luang Prabang. Many of its elephants were retired from logging camps; the Kuang Si waterfall, which sits in a nature reserve outside Luang Prabang.Kevin West
More than half the population are Lao Loum, or lowland Buddhists.
Only around 400 of the countrys namesake million wild elephants remain.
The road back to town conveniently passes an ice-cream stand, the storefront of the countrys sole dairy.
From left: The blue lagoon next to Tham Phu Kham, or the Golden Crab Cave, near Vang Vieng; teatime at the Rosewood Luang Prabang.Kevin West
A Mekong cruise is a standard feature of any visit to Luang Prabang.
The caves interiors glinted with gold.
The Buddhas now number in the thousands.
A modest crowd had arrived before me, and together we pointed our phones toward the orange light.
Laos is a multicultural country with 49 officially recognized ethnic groups and many subgroups.
More than half the population are Lao Loum, or lowland Buddhists.
Many practice animist religions.
Their daily world teems with local deities forest spirits outside the village gate and ancestor spirits within.
Different groups take a neutral view of each other, and intermarriage is accepted.
One parent might be Buddhist, the other animist, and the children will belong to both traditions.
I asked Xai how it made him feel.
Happy, he said.
When he was a boy, his village had no electricity and shamans still used plant medicine for healing.
If its construction is sound, he is considered qualified for marriage.
When he finds a girl he likes, he persuades her to spend the night with him there.
The next day, Xai introduced me to his tribe, the Tai Dam.
Handsome youths on stilts danced in formation to pounding drums while hordes of costumed girls cheered them on.
The music was joyous, insistent, a celebration of young blood.
This is my tribe, he said, as if nothing could be better.
yo send more tourists.
The next morning dawned cool and drizzly.
Rain in the dry season meant muddy roads.
And our destination was high in the hills along the border with Myanmar.
We drove west from Muang Sing, following unpaved roads through sugarcane plantations for two hours.
The regions previous crop was bananas, also grown for export to China.
Before bananas, corn.
And before corn, farmers were all children of the rice.
Now they are sugar junkies.
The reason rational economic self-interest became clear when we stopped to talk to a farmer working in his fields.
The previous year, the man reported, he harvested nearly 200 tons of sugarcane.
His total income approached $10,000, an important sum.
Money like that paid for the two-story stucco houses I saw replacing bamboo huts along the road.
The largest houses, villas really, likely belonged to local traders allied with Chinese speculators.
One residence was three stories tall and topped with a domed cupola truly a sugar palace.
The driver grimaced and spun his wheels.
The room itself, if not quite at the luxury level, was ripe for documenting on Instagram.
Finally, we arrived at a clearing.
Children and young men came running to gape at me.
None had visited the village.
Soon the young chief arrived.
He was only 24.
Formalities completed, tea poured, he invited me to ask questions.
We talked for a while about growing rice with seed stock handed down from his great-great-great grandparents.
His ambition, however, tilted toward the future.
They listened intently to their charismatic chief.
The room itself, if not quite at the luxury level, was ripe for documenting on Instagram.
First stop: the rocky overlook trail to a motorcycle mounted at cliffs edge for social media posts.
Third stop: some other place where you stand in lines to buy tickets with other tourists.
I hightailed it to Vientiane, and from there swiftly on to the Plain of Jars.
Soon the young chief arrived.
He was only 24.
Formalities completed, tea poured, he invited me to ask questions.
We talked for a while about growing rice with seed stock handed down from his great-great-great grandparents.
His ambition, however, tilted toward the future.
Lidless and hollow, they stare at the sky, each a cyclops eye.
It was appalling to see the plain pocked with bomb craters, still gaping after 50 years or more.
Perhaps a third of them didnt explode, and these bombs still claim victims today.
Tourists are warned not to wander off established trails.
Despite the legacy of horror, the Laotians I met showed almost no anger toward Americans.
Its a long time ago, he answered thoughtfully.
Buddhist culture teaches people to forgive.
That was then, and it was war.
Residents cheered him as Laobama.
Tourism done responsibly is beneficial, Steadman had told me the night before.
What people should do is come, spend, and then tell others the story of what happened here.
That advice echoed in my head at Ban Naphia, the spoon village not far beyond the silk farm.
In an open-air shed stood a modest metalworking studio run by the village teacher and her husband.
Here they smelted aluminum in a wood-fired forge and cast spoons in hand-carved wooden molds.
I looked up and realized everyone around me was using one, too.
The restaurantLe Calaohas wonderful food and terrace seating.
No-frills lunch spot L.P.B., on Khem Khong Road, serves local specialties at tables overlooking the Mekong.
Modest restaurants such asZuela Guesthousehave rustic but generally excellent food.
Vientiane
The statelySettha Palace Hoteloffers high ceilings and arctic air-conditioning.
The Slow Food restaurantDoi Ka Noiserves superb Laotian cuisine prepared with conscientiously sourced ingredients.
Expect rustic guesthouses and simple open-air restaurants.
An essential stop isMulberries Organic Silk Farm, for handwoven textiles.
