Last Updated on April 6, 2023 by PowersToTravel
If any country in our Southeast Asia Odyssey required us to purchase medical and evacuation travel insurance, Laos was it.
My studies of healthcare in Laos led me to understand how challenged the country’s healthcare system is, and how prevalent such diseases as malaria and dengue fever are.
These statements are not meant to scare you, a potential traveler to Laos, but rather encourage you to continue reading, to understand the risks and preparations you should make, and after having prepared, be prepared to fall in love with this country.
Laos is not a terribly well developed country in terms of tourism, in fact other tourists we met in Myanmar and Thailand during our long trip informed us that Laos was more the epitome of what Southeast Asia used to be, before being overwhelmed by tourism and modern society.
We were prepared. Check out my article Diabetic Travel Tips for International Travel for many more details.
Vaccines and Travel Clinic – before you go
I checked out the CDC Travel Website for Laos. We also went to a Travel Clinic many months prior to our trip, to make sure all needed vaccines were up to date.
Our choice of Laos introduced the possibility of Japanese Encephalitis. Japanese Encephalitis is a mosquito-born disease. Never having heard of it, I was naturally concerned, and the doctor after learning that we would be two months on the trip, did recommend the vaccine. However, it is a costly vaccine. My memory is that it cost us almost $500 each.
As a diabetic, and a risk-averse person, I decided that I would rather spend the money than lose my life. All my life I have been told the story of my grandmother who became sick when pregnant. It was during the Depression, and the doctor gave her a choice – a more inexpensive medication that was rather safe, and a more expensive medication that was even safer. She and my grandfather chose the less expensive choice. She ended up losing the baby, and never being able to have another. She impressed on me that folly of exchanging short-term money for long-term health.
So I chose the vaccine. We didn’t get Japanese Encephalitis, but I can say that we didn’t go traipsing around muddy rice paddies or backpack around – we traveled in cars to well-trodden tourist sites in the dry season; I don’t know if it was money well spent or not, and whether I would make the same decision again?
Eating Unusual Foods
I can say that Laos rivals Myanmar for the worst food in Southeast Asia. Our travel agent Backyard Travel likes to give its customers a more authentic feel of the country, so our lunches out, which were led by our guide, were at local restaurants.
At one location, we gazed in envy at a Chinese Restaurant next door, while we sat in an open-air restaurant lined with long picnic tables and benches. The waitress came to us with the standard two choices: Chicken or Pork? Rice or Noodles? They then prepared a stir-fry. The flavors were not memorable – no little cashew nuts in the chicken to entice our taste-buds – just oil and stir-fried meat, starch and some vegetables.
This would be fine once, or maybe twice, but we were getting tired of stir-fry.
So I can tell you that we ate no unusual foods in Laos.
However, we might have had the chance. I’m writing this article during our COVID-19 “stay at home” and I can immediately see in my minds eye the “Wet Markets” that we visited in Laos – the meat being butchered on open-air tables with flies all around, cages with strange wild animals sitting right there with the meat and veg. I took a picture of one of the creatures in a cage, I believe it was an opossum and the woman nearby came running up to me, yelling and covering the cage. I realized at that moment that it was illegal to have the wild animals in the market, but that didn’t stop the locals.
We also saw children at the side of a road playing what appeared to be their favorite game – flying bats. They had tied a string around, or through, live bats and then ran around in circles flying them like kite. Oh, I think of the parasites and germs running around the countryside there! And now I think of COVID-19…
But we didn’t eat there in the markets, never were tempted in the least!
Avoid the Water
Yet indeed, I was very careful in Laos to drink only bottled water. No one ever suggested I not, and no one ever tried to trick me into drinking “re-bottled water”, in which the bottle’s seal was already broken (as they did in Bangkok once.)
Protecting my insulin and supplies from theft
I could say “we were lucky” in that we were on a private driving tour, but I can say that we wouldn’t have gone to Laos otherwise. A lot of people do go, and happily, as backpackers and independent travelers, however with my diabetic concerns, and all of my needed diabetic supplies, along with the difficulty in replacing even the most simple of those supplies in Laos, I was quite comfortable in having a private car with driver, to protect all of our belongings.
I can’t say whether Laos is a more risky location for theft than any other country because I didn’t investigate that. Not having a tour guide / driver was simply not an option for me, and therefore I had that concern covered.
Coping with the diarrhea and vomiting that occasionally hits
Luckily I had no digestive issues while in Laos. I ate and drank carefully and reaped the benefits. I have written an article Traveler’s Diarrhea and Diabetes – How to stop it and quick with a lot of details should the problem hit.
Avoiding the Mosquitos
For Laos, as in the rest of Southeast Asia, avoiding the mosquitos is key. One easy way to do this is to travel during the dry season – November to April. We traveled in December.
Due to my fear of the very real Dengue Fever, I also was extremely careful to wear long pants and long sleeved shirts (not hard to do since Laos is partly mountainous and it was actually downright cold during most of our trip!) I was also liberal with the DEET on my neck. We did not hang out at river’s edge bars, or outdoors for that matter, in the evenings; we chose indoor restaurants.
I didn’t get a single mosquito bite in Laos!
Travel Insurance
Travel Insurance with evacuation is a must for Laos. The healthcare system is poor, the roads are poor, disease is high, as well as the roads being dangerous. Another consideration is the danger of adventure activities. We have gone zip-lining, white-water rafting and other mild adventure activities in the past in other countries.
But we chose not to indulge in Southeast Asia, we chose instead adventures we couldn’t do in the Americas, such as bathing an elephant. Laws regarding client safety are very lax, and it is very possible to injure yourself, much more easily in Southeast Asia than in the US.
(As a side note I injured my toe very badly in a swimming accident in Thailand, as I slid down a ladder into the water. They had wrapped the ladder rungs in rope. Rope burns when wet and the action tore the side of my big toe off! It was a very difficult time, and was I ever happy that the group that day included a British nurse who wrapped up my foot, applied liberal antiseptic and was I ever happy I had a complete first aid kit including Azithromycin to keep infection at bay!)
But I digress – in Laos I didn’t chose to partake in adventure, and chose instead culture and scenery. British nurses aren’t thick on the ground in Laos!
Motion Sickness
Laos is a red-flag, danger-zone for people who suffer from motion sickness. I knew we would be driving on mountainous roads, but I had been so successful for so long using my SeaBand wristlets that I thought I had it all covered. Oh, not so! Read my article Coping with Motion Sickness before you venture to Laos, if you suffer from motion sickness, even in a mild way.
Moving right along…
Have I scared you into dropping Laos from your Southeast Asia itinerary? I hope not! While Laos was one of the more challenging (and for me as a diabetic – worrisome) countries, it was also extremely memorable. Do I think back on what we did in Vietnam? I could, but I don’t generally; however it is the experiences in Laos that had a more lasting, and positive, affect on me.
