A 100% guaranteed way to eradicate stress and revitalise: go to Laos. Doctors should forgo prescribing medicine and give out Laos visas instead. If you've just been in neighbouring Vietnam, you will find Laos is the perfect tonic of peace and tranquillity to your hawker headache. Everything slows down and nothing seems to matter. Life revolves around simple pleasures: a breeze as you swing in a hammock, a sunset Beer Lao, a meal down by the mighty Mekong... and yes please, I would like a job for the Lao Tourist Board. We crossed at the Lao Bao border and continued on to Savannakhet, a Mekong town of dusty red roads devoid of traffic. The pavements were utterly redundant, being overgrown with weeds through lack of use. We spent the first five minutes bushwalking on the pavement
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