After the craziness of Vietnam, Laos came like a breath of fresh air. The country's full title is Laos People's Democratic Republic (PDR). The Lonely Planet reckons PDR should stand for Please Don't Rush and they could not be more right :) After hearing many horror stories and getting plenty warnings from folk we met on the road about the Laos land borders, we decided to fly in. Armed and ready with our documentation, we had aleady stocked up on the local currency (Kip) to pay for our visa on arrival. On arrival however, they told us they only accepted US Dollars. We showed them that we only had Kip, so a border official took our passports, walked us into the main airport terminal to an atm, then to a Bureau de Change to get dollars,
... read more