Laos Information
Laos Map on Virtual Earth
Lao
Embassy in the USA Visa and Country Information
Geography
Laos is landlocked and lies between Thailand, Myanmar, China, Vietnam and
Cambodia. The Mekong River forms
the country's western border and the Annamite mountains form its eastern border
with Vietnam. The total land area is approximately 237,000 sq km - an area
similar to that of the United Kingdom. The
main features of the country are its mountains and the Mekong River valley.
The Mekong River and its 15 tributaries make up a total of 2,400 km of
waterways, but only about one third of these are navigable.
70% of the country is mountainous. In
the south, the Annamite mountains reach 2,600m in height.
The Khammouanne plateau in the centre of the range is mass of limestone
karst. At the south of the range is
the Bolaven Plateau. The
north of Laos is made of steep sloped mountain ranges with the highest mountain
in the country at 2820m in Xiang Khouang province. Over half of Laos is forest.
Climate
Laos
has a monsoon climate of a dry and a wet season.
The dry season lasts from November to May with the cooler period in
December and January. At its
coldest, the temperatures can fall to as low as 15 deg C.
The cold periods tend to be at night and early morning with colder
temperatures at higher altitudes. During
the hot period of the dry season, between March and May, temperatures can reach
the high 30s. The rainy season is a
lot cooler, and rainfall varies according to altitude.
Generally speaking, the monsoon season produces severe rain that lasts
for short periods of time. The wet
months vary according to location, in Vientiane, they are from May to September,
in Luang Prabang, August is far wetter than any other month.
History
For
much of its history, Laos has been under the thumb of its neighbors – at
various times the Cambodians, Burmese, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Siamese (Thais).
The result is that Laos has experienced great difficulty in establishing a
national identity.
The
earliest inhabitants of Laos were migrants from southern China. From the 11th
century onward, parts of Laos fell under the Khmer Empire, and later under
Siamese influence from the Sukhothai dynasty. With the fall of Sukhothai in
1345, the first kingdom of Laos emerged under Fa Ngum, a Lao prince brought up
in the court of Angkor Wat. As the Khmer Empire crumbled, Fa Ngum welded
together a new empire, which he modestly christened ‘Lan Xang’ – the Land
of a Million Elephants. Lan Xang covered the whole of present-day Laos plus most
of Issan (northeast Thailand). Fa Ngum declared himself king of the realm in
1353. Fa Ngum was unable to subdue the unruly highlanders of the northeast
regions; these remained independent of Lan Xang Rule.
Upon
Fa Ngum’s marriage to a Cambodian princess, the Khmer court gave the Lao king
a sacred gold Buddha called Pra Bang. Fa Ngum made Buddhism the state religion,
and Pra Bang became the protector of the Lao kingdom. Nobility pledged
allegiance to the king before the statue. Named after Pra Bang was the city of
Luang Prabang, the cradle of Lao culture and the centre of the Lao state for the
next 200 years.
Monarchs of Lan Xang
Fa
Ngum’s son, Samsenthai, who reigned 1373-1416, consolidated the royal
administration, developing Luang Prabang as a trading and religious center. His
death was followed by unrest under a swift succession of lackluster monarchs.
Luang Prabang came under increasing threat from incursions by the Vietnamese and
later the Burmese. In 1563, King Settathirat declared Vientiane the capital of
Lan Xang, and built Wat Pra Keo to house the Emerald Buddha, a gift from the
king of Ceylon, as a new talisman for the kingdom. Settathirat is revered as one
of the great Lao kings because he protected the nation from foreign subjugation.
When he disappeared in 1574 on a military campaign, the kingdom rapidly declined
and was subject to Burmese invasion. There was a quick and lackluster succession
of kings after Settathirat.
King
Souligna Vongsa, who ruled 1633-94, brought stability and peace back to the
kingdom – a period regarded as Lan Xang’s golden age.
Siamese Satellite
When
Souligna Vongsa died in 1694 without an heir, the leadership of Lan Xang was
contested, and the nation split into three kingdoms. The area around Vientiane
was taken over by Souligna’s nephew, supported by the Annamites from northern
Vietnam; Souligna’s grandson controlled the area around Luang Prabang, while
another prince controlled the southern kingdom of Champassak, with Thai backing.
China, Burma, and Vietnam briefly held sway over these kingdoms; bands of
Chinese marauders terrorized the north of the country.
The
power of Lan Xang waned; gradually, the Thais extended their influence over most
of Laos until it became a Siamese satellite state. In the 1820s, Vientiane’s
king Anou rebelled against Siamese interference and attacked the Thais. The Thai
response was to sack Vientiane in 1827, razing most of the city.
Land of the Lotus-Eaters
In
the late 19th century, the king of Siam, seeking to keep Thailand free of
foreign domination, ceded a large tract of territory – equivalent of what is
now Laos and Cambodia combined – to the French. A series of treaties released
more Lao territories to the French between 1893 and 1907. Former Lao territories
were thus united again, although the three kingdoms founded in the late 17th
century remained in existence, and tribal princes were able to increase their
power by collaborating with the French. The French gave the new protectorate the
name Laos, from les Laos, the plural term for the people of Laos.
Laos
was a low-key French protectorate, known as the land of the lotus-eaters, where
an indolent lifestyle prevailed. It was too mountainous for plantations, there
was little in the way of mining, and the Mekong was not suitable for commercial
navigation. The French built very few roads – the main colonial route
constructed was from Luang Prabang through Vientiane to Savannakhet and the
Cambodian frontier. The French built no higher-education facilities; some
half-hearted attempts were made to cultivate rubber and coffee, but the main
export under the French was opium. Only a few hundred French resided in Laos.
They adopted a dissolute lifestyle with Lao or Annamite consorts, and left the
running of the place to Vietnamese civil servants. The king was allowed to
remain in Luang Prabang, trade was left to resident Vietnamese and Chinese, and
the Lao carried on farming as they had for hundreds of years.
During
the colonial period, administration, health care, and education hardly made any
impact or progress at all. The only significant change for ordinary folk was the
presence of obnoxious tax collectors, a frequent cause of uprisings. In the
lowlands, revolts were quickly put down, but in the highlands of Xieng Khuang
and the Bolovens Plateau, the French had trouble deploying their heavy weaponry.
Sometimes a remission of taxes led to pacification.
The
50-year French sojourn in Laos came to an abrupt end in March 1945, when the
Japanese took control of the government and interned the Vichy French. With the
surrender of Japan in August that year, the Lao Issara (Free Laos) movement
declared liberation from the French in September, and set about establishing an
alternative government. The Lao Issara leader was Prince Phetsarath, a nephew of
the king. Other key players in the Lao Issara were his half-brothers, Prince
Souvanna Phouma and Prince Souphanouvong.
King
Sisavang Vong sided with the French, and the movement for Lao independence was
crushed, causing Prince Phetsarath and Prince Souvanna Phouma to flee to
Thailand. King Sisavang Vong was crowned constitutional monarch of all Laos in
1946. Meanwhile, the Lao Issara dissolved, and a splinter group called the
Pathet Lao formed a new resistance group based in northeast Laos. The Pathet Lao
were led by Prince Souphanouvong and backed by the Vietminh of North Vietnam.
Prince Souvanna Phouma returned to Vientiane and joined the newly formed Royal
Lao Government.
The
French granted full sovereignty to Laos in 1953, but the Pathet Lao regarded the
royalist government as Western-dominated. When in 1954 the French made a last
stand at Dien Bien Phu, it ended badly, with a stunning defeat. The weary French
started a withdrawal from Indochina; at this point, the US started supplying the
Royal Lao Government with arms.
Civil War Skirmishes
The
US-backed Royal Lao Government ruled over a divided country from 1951 to 1954.
The Geneva Conference of July 1954 granted full independence to Laos but did not
settle the issue of who would rule. Prince Souvanna Phouma, a neutralist,
operated from Vientiane; in the south, right-wing, pro-US Prince Boun Oum of
Champassak dominated the Pakse area. In the far north, Prince Souphanouvong led
the leftist resistance movement, the Pathet Lao, drawing support from North
Vietnam.
In
1959, the Lao king died and was succeeded by his son, Sisavang Vatthana. Over
the next few years there were a number of unsuccessful attempts to set up a
coalition government to bring royalists and communists together. Souvanna Phouma
became Prime Minister in 1956 and tried to integrate his half-brother’s Pathet
Lao forces into a coalition government. That government was toppled in 1958.
Fighting broke out between the Royal Lao Army and the Pathet Lao in 1960; in
1961, a neutral independent government was set up under Prince Souvanna Phouma,
based in Vientiane. A second attempt at a coalition government floundered in
1962 due to the widening war in Vietnam. The neutralists later joined forces
with the Pathet Lao to oppose forces backed by the US and Thailand.
The Dirty War
For
the next decade, Laos was plagued by civil war, coups, countercoups, and chaos,
and was dragged headlong into the Vietnam War. Laos became a pawn of the
superpowers, with Hmong tribesmen trained by CIA agents, Thai mercenaries
fighting for the Royal Lao government, and the Pathet Lao receiving help from
the Chinese, the Russians, and the Vietminh.
During
the Vietnam War, Laos was effectively partitioned into four spheres of
influence: the Chinese in the north, the Vietnamese along the Ho Chi Minh Trail
in the east, the Thais in western areas controlled by the US-backed Royal Lao
Government, and the Khmer Rouge operating from parts of the south. Because of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Laos was subjected to saturation bombing by aerial raids
launched from Thailand and from within Laos. In this undeclared dirty war, the
tonnage of bombs dropped by US bombers on the northern Lao provinces of Xieng
Khuang, Sam Neua, the Phong Saly between 1964 and 1973 exceeded the entire
tonnage dropped over Europe by all sides during WWII. It is estimated that US
forces flew almost 600,000 sorties – the equivalent of one bombing run every
eight minutes around the clock for nine years. This air assault was shrouded in
secrecy, since under the terms of the Geneva Accord of 1962 no foreign personnel
were supposed to operate on Laotian territory. The Vietminh and the Chinese also
violated Laos’ neutrality with infantry divisions deployed in the north. In
the early days of the bombing, American pilots dressed in civilian clothing flew
old planes with Royal Lao markings; Thai and Hmong pilots were also trained to
fly missions.
So
confusing did the number of Laotian coups become that the Americans were unsure
which Phoumi, Phuouma, Phoui, Souvanna, or Souvanou was in power at any given
time. American journalist Malcolm Browne described this bewildering era thus:
"Laos
was as improbable as the Looking Glass world ruled by the Red Queen, the White
Queen and Alice. Its towns and trackless jungles swarmed with guerillas,
communist agents, Special Forces troopers, armed tribesmen, opium growers, an
international corps of mercenaries and sundry camp followers. Vientiane was
awash with the dollars pouring in with the foreigners. The Chinese-owned gold
shops along Samsentai Street did a booming business in twenty-four karat gold
bracelets, each weighing five ounces or more. Customers included pilots of the
CIA’s Air America, French military advisors, Belgian mercenaries, spooks,
assassins and journalists. Foreigners bought gold bracelets on the theory that
if they were shot down or wounded, they could pay for help from tribesmen with
gold, the only currency universally respected in Laos."
Pathet Lao Victory
In
1973, as the US began its strategic withdrawal from Vietnam, the Pathet Lao
gained the upper hand, controlling most of the country’s provinces. In 1975,
with the fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh, opposition to the Pathet Lao crumbled.
The Pathet Lao took Pakse, Champassak, Savannakhet, and finally Vientiane
without opposition, establishing the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR).
Lao
People
There
are 68 official ethnic groups in Laos, belonging to three main groups.
Lao
Loum - Lao, or Lao Loum consists of about half of the poulation. The Lao Loum
or lowland lao people live in the Mekong river valley and its tributaries. The
Lao Loum cultivate and eat wet, or sticky rice, and generally practice Theravada
Buddhism. Lao Loum are a subgroup of the Austro-Thai people and speak the Lao
language. The Lao Loum women wear the traditional sinh - the wraparound sarong.
Lao Tai are closely related to the Lao Loum and are officially classified
in that group. The Lao Tai are more tribal than the Lao Loum and cultivate both
wet rice and dry mountain rice. Lao Tai traditionally practice slash and burn
agricultural methods. The Lao Tai on the whole have not converted to either
Christianity or Buddhism and retain their animist beliefs. Lao Tai are further
subdivided into sub groups by the colour of their traditional clothing, ie
Black, White, Red Tai.
Lao
Theung are the largest
hilltribe group, with 45 subgroups. The Lao Theeung are semi nomadic and of
Mon-Khmer origin. They live on mountain slopes, between 300 and 900m altitude
and practice slash and burn agriculture. The Khamu subgroup is found in the
north and grow mountain rice, cotton, coffee and tobacco. The Tin subgroup is
found in Sayabouli province - they are hunters and do not use metal tools, using
only wood and bamboo. The Akha and Alak subgroups live in the south in the
Boloven plateau.
Lao
Sung or High Lao live in the high mountains of the north. Main groups are the
Hmong and the Mien. Hmong are divided into Black, Red, White and Striped,
according to their clothing. The Hmong raise cattle, pigs and chickens and
generally survive on a barter economy. The Mien have a similar language to the
Hmong and are known for their silver craftsmanship. Smaller hilltribe groups
include the Lisu, Lahu and Lolo.
As
well as the four main groups, Laos also has a number of Chinese, mainly living
in the cities as well as ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodians, Burmese and Thai, In
Vientiane there are also a small number of southern Asians.
Nature
Laos
has rich vegetation, mainly monsoon forest. Monsoon forest consists of a top
canopy of hardwood trees like dipterocarps that can reach 30m high. The middle
canopy consists of smaller trees such as teak and Asian rosewood. The
undergrowth is bamboo, smaller trees, shrubs and grasses. Tropical palms and
orchids are common, as are a variety of tropical fruit trees.
Parts
of the Annamite chain are covered with tropical evergreen forest, where rainfall
is highest and in the south, tropical pine forests can be found.
Laos
has a large number of animal species, including as many as 500 different birds.
Reptiles include many snakes, including king cobras. There are a large number of
lizards, from the small ghekos to 2m long monitor lizards. Mammals include wild
cats, bears, leopards and tigers. There are up to 500 wild elephants in Laos,
although more than twice that number are in captivity.
There are a number of rare species in Laos which which include rhinos and
wild cattle.
Prices for -
Laos
Cultural Adventure
|
