The Best of Cambodia & Laos

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PLANNING YOUR TRIP TO LAOS
10
STAYING CONNECTED
One of the country’s principal operators,
Green Discovery (www.greendiscovery
laos.com) is the activity tour specialist
with offices in Vientiane, Vang Vieng,
Luang Prabang, Luang Namtha, and
Pakse. Their website offers a wide range of
options for every activity. They also run
10 ESCORTED GENERAL-INTEREST TOURS
ESCORTED TOURS
Green Discovery (www.greendiscovery
laos.com) offer a range of tours, taking in
every site and activity you could want to
see in every part of the country. They have
offices all over the country so trips can be
booked locally or all in one go from Vientiane.
They specialize in adventure activities
but they also provide a full range of
tours covering towns and villages, and
historical sites.
For Remote Asia (www.remoteasia.
com), the flagship activity is motorcycling,
with other tours as well. The Laos Heritage
and Cultural Expedition is an 11-day
experience, taking in all the major sites of
interest from Luang Prabang in the north
CELLPHONES
Laos has bypassed the need to upgrade the
land-line system by investing heavily in
the cellphone network. There are a number
of operators and you can buy a local
SIM card for $5. Recharge cards are also
cheap and widely available. There are a
number of providers. Laotel and ETL
Mobile have the best coverage. Tigo has
agreements with over 100 International
phone networks. They also have a low-cost
international rate of 2,000 kip per minute
to many countries, if you buy their SIM
card and dial “177” instead of “+.” Their
tours offering a combination of activities.
Remote Asia (www.remoteasia.com)
offers a “Work up a sweat” 11-day activity
tour of the north, involving dirt biking,
trekking, kayaking, caving, mountain biking,
and stays in hill tribe villages.
to Wat Phou in the south. They also offer
tours tailored to your needs and these can
be put together beforehand.
Diethelm Travel (www.diethelmtravel.
com) is a Pan-Asian operator offering a
whole range of tours both long and short
all around the country.
Exotissimo (www.exotissimo.com) is
another Pan-Asian tour company offering
a range of escorted tours throughout the
country.
Inter Lao Tourism (www.interlao.com)
was one of the first operators on the scene
and has been established in Laos since
1989. It has Lao ownership and all staff is
Lao and has very detailed local knowledge.
11 STAYING CONNECTED
coverage is still said to be poor away from
larger towns. ETL Mobile (www.etllao.
com) is known to have better coverage in
rural and remote parts of Laos. However,
in Laos “better” certainly does not mean
“everywhere.”
INTERNET & E-MAIL
There are Internet cafes in every town of
any size at all. Prices vary between 100 kip
and 300 kip a minute. Connections are
usually fairly slow. Computers are often
badly maintained and riddled with viruses,
so beware if you are using a thumb drive