L(a)ost in translation...

Laos has a classic backpacker charm which makes you grow a beard, dress in colorful harem pants picked up on a night market for 100 baht and jump into the jungle forgetting about hygiene and rush for weeks.Time slows down here proportionately to a public transport. Even your heart seems to be adjusting itself to surprisingly natural pace and you can only hear gasps of awe coming from your own throat when you look around at this stunning, uninterrupted beauty of Lao landscape. Forget motorways, pad thai and white sand beaches facing azure waters. You're now in the heritage park surrounded by mountains and covered in a thick layer of jungle and you may not see traces of civilization for a while. There is 6.5 mln people living in the country of the size of the UK (with population 10 times higher): same as Hong Kong only in the area over 230 times bigger.

Why do we even like escaping to nature I wonder sometimes? Like our soul as human beings is still attached to the environment and loosing leash of civilization for a while restores some historically (or even paleontologically) embedded rhythm. Is going astray just a matter of change from organized life ruled by the "tyranny of the moment" or it actually recharges some deeply rooted organic batteries neutralized by technological progress? We're still more depended on nature than we like to admit. Our animal heritage is permanently present within us despite long evolutionary effort but we let it control us only sometimes.Like there is unfulfilled thirst for an adventure which makes us believe we're still self-sufficient, we can survive on our own without collective brain of culture and unplugged from matrix.

Every city you've seen so far in Vietnam and Thailand will seem like overcrowded metropolis when compared to Luang Prabang. Traffic starts every evening at the night market. There is no hustle-bustle, nobody is rushing anywhere, it doesn't even resemble city - it's more like owners of restaurants and pubs created a guild, built few random roads between ancient temples to connect all businesses in one cluster and called for tourists to fill it in. Among must see places on the top of my list is Utopia, where you can play indoor volleyball, practice yoga on a terrace facing Nam Khan river or just chillout on the extremely comfortable pillows. Luang Prabang may be quiet and rural, but it knows how to attract and appreciate guests. Lao Lao Garden is a multilevel-ed bar/restaurant with pool table, real trees and fountains and La Pistoche has a pool. Mekong is a vain that cuts Laos in half and delivers life to it's every corner - you can take slow boat from Thailand that will take you right to the door of Imperial Palace in Luang Prabang and view on the way is spectacular.

There is a predictable pattern with food nomenclature. Every dish is Lao something (just like Khmer in Cambodia). You can get Pad Lao (equivalent of a flagship Thai noodles) and Lao rice soup, national drink is Lao Beer and rice vodka with even more sophisticated name: Lao lao. Food is generally good but customer service overshadows everything you get on a plate - Lao are the nicest people you may come across in Asia and they always make an effort to please you (skills probably honed by years of exposure to oppressive and demanding French bourgeoisie).

Road from Luang Prabang to Vientiane takes usually 15 hours and goes through the mountains where you either pray for your life, vomit at every corner (and there is a lot of corners!) or admire view outside the window of a struggling bus. This is one of the highlights of Laos - you can limit this torture by stopping in Vang Vieng for kayaking, rock climbing, cycling or tubing. Landscape is absolutely breathtaking and I honestly don't know why (and how) people drive there at night.

If you like being l(a)ost in a timeless dimension, practice some of the Bear Grills survival tricks you've seen in TV or forget yourself surrounded by super-friendly and arguably the most hospitable people in Asia - you've just found your paradise!