First Time In Laos? American Travelers NEED to Know!

First Time In Laos? American Travelers NEED to Know!

This is Francois Marc, your  favorite American exat living   in Seoul South Korea! I’m here in Vientiane. Yo Zack this is the beginning of the  trip so what is your uh your favorite   part about traveling abroad? “Landing  in a new country. I think it’s really  

Exciting. Like Zack, I also  like going to new countries. Just got off the plane and it  was a long flight. It’s about 11,   ‘hello’. It’s 11:00 at night but we made it here  safely. Welcome to LAOS! Just got our bags here   at Wattay International Airport and it was super  fast like the Visa process was incredibly easy.

Oh so we can just get…?yes you can…it’s cheap.  2 dollars is okay. We just got some money and we   also got our SIM cards and we got a taxi ticket  into the city to go to our hotel. So as soon as  

We get situated I’ll fill you in on the details  about what you need in order to go through the   visa on arrival and how you can get your sim card  and how you can also get a taxi into the city

Okay let’s check out out this view  in the morning. whoa! And there’s an   airport just over here and there’s  a Temple right behind the airport. Okay, I finally finished breakfast so now I can  give you some tips for Americans specifically  

For Americans. If you’re traveling to Laos,  these these tips you definitely need to know.   Number one for Americans, you can get a Visa on  arrival so you don’t need to apply for a Visa   if you are in the States or in another country  you can get the visa when you arrive in Laos,  

No problem. Visas for Americans cost $40 so make  sure you’re bringing US cash and make sure you   bring crisp bills to pay the Customs agent.  Please do not bring crinkled money because if   you do they’re probably not going to accept it.  But yeah the Visa price or visa fee for Americans  

Is just $40. Next the Visa process is extremely  easy. Once you arrive at Watery International   Airport here in Laos, you’ll go to the Customs  counter as you would in other countries that   you visit and you’ll fill out a form you’ll  take the farm or form not Farm, the form,  

To the Customs desk. I believe last night I went  to desk number 14 or something. But anyways it’ll   say uh visa on arrival and there are four steps  you need to take in order to get the visa. first  

Step you take is to take your passport and hand  it to the Customs agent at counter one. next up   you take the arrival information that you filled  out and give it to the Customs agent at counter  

Number two at counter number three you’re going to  pay the $40 for your visa. And at counter number   four you’re going to take a photo and receive  your Visa. I believe that’s all I did I took  

My photo and the Customs agent asked me a few  questions how long you’re going to stay where   you going afterwards and yeah I got my Visa. So  for Americans coming to Laos, the Visa process   is extremely easy you have nothing to worry  about and this is as of December 24th 2023.  

Okay we’re finally out and about in Vientiane.  We left the hotel and we didn’t opt to get the   car the hotel car to take us around we’re just  going to walk around and see what the city has  

To offer there’s a lot of color. there’s a lot of  Vibrance so we’re just going to let life happen, yo one thing that you should know before  coming to Laos is that you actually need   to research how to cross the streets. So  far we don’t exactly know how to cross  

The streets we’re just running into traffic  and hoping and praying that they stop for us we’re trying to get something to eat for lunch and  everyone is speaking like Chinese Mandarin Chinese   here. So Zack he lives in China so he’s using like  the little Mandarin that he knows and also he’s  

Using an app to help us look for some food. Sticky tofu or something? all right, guess tofu is not that bad. so we actually got fries, something that we’re familiar with but then they brought us… “no idea what that is.” ” have no idea what these are either.

I think they’re chicken balls maybe or they  could be chicken balls like tofu balls?   SO, like when I pick up the beef it feels really hard  feels kind of like jerky and I think I could I can

Agree… it’s very dry. okay guys so now we’re  eating our food we have I don’t know what this   is but there’s a lot of ginger in it and  I think this is beef and we’ve got some  

Broccoli and carrots with ginger and we also  got a really big bowl of rice. when you come   to Laos, please please please bring US dollars so you  can change your money at the airport for Laos KIP.

You need cash everywhere in the city. if you’re  using your card they will charge you a 3.5% interest. okay guys I just brought some bought  some sunglasses from one of the stores here. I’m   pretty sure I didn’t get ripped off but I could  have negotiated or haggled for a lower price. so  

Originally the sunglasses were 180,000 kip  but I talked the guy down to 120,000 uh Kip. I   probably could have just given him 100,000  like Zach says and walked away uh and then   he would have probably accepted that money. but yeah when you come to to Laos or to yeah  

Some of these Southeast Asian countries, you can  haggle you don’t have to go for the original price. now we are at the night market area it’s  way too early for the night market so we’re going  

To go take a walk along the Mekong River  and we took a taxi to get here. so when you’re   coming to uh Vietiane, then you want to download the  application called LOCA. LOCA is the app that’s  

Kind of like uber here. And you can rent or order a  taxi or car to take you anywhere in the city that   you need. Another thing about being here in Vientiane or  probably hi probably in Lon General is that you  

Want to get some sunglasses because there is so  much dust in the air and you probably want a mask.   Like my throat is hurting a bit because there’s so  much dust in the air so I had to stop and get some  

Sunglasses. Zack didn’t bring any cash with him to  Laos, so we’ve come to the street right across from   the night market and you can see there is a whole  slew of ATMs there’s just like ATM street is what  

We should call this. Yo I’m loving the architecture  here in downtown Vietnam like it’s super reminiscent   of the architecture at the the French Quarter  in Vietnam. so as you know I always try ice cream   wherever I travel so we’re going to try this  ice cream for the first time here in Vientiane. it’s

Vanilla. are you sure it’s not chocolate? yo it’s  recording man! sheesh! Yeah, it’s vanilla. good okay so I’m loving   the Laos or Laotian architecture. It looks like uh or  it reminds me of like Chinese architecture. I  

Think Laos is very heavily influenced by Chinese  culture. and yo so I was I was trying to figure   out how many people live in Laos and Zach was  like let me guess. He was like 7 million and  

The actual answer is 7.4 million 7.4 million as  of 2021. Okay the reason why I was saying this is   because I see a Starbucks and I remember in the  summertime when I went to Mongolia there were no  

Starbucks there. and one of my friends Mongolian  friends told me that there are no Starbucks there   because the population is so small .Starbucks  and McDonald’s only put restaurants and cafes   where the population uh is large. Mongolia  doesn’t make the list for Starbucks but Laos  

Does. very interesting. okay guys so we want to go  inside of this Temple area and we had our short   sleeve shirts on or we had our like cut off shirts  sleeveless shirts. Changed into shirts where our shoulders  

Aren’t shown because I believe here in Laos you  have to cover your shoulders if you’re going into temples. [Music] Now we’ve come to the Mekong River. So this river is in the center of Vientiane in Laos and  

Right across the river is Thailand. is that correct  Zach? Yep, I confirmed it! We’re going to sit here   and chill for a bit and you know talk and recap  our day and then do some planning for our next  

Adventure and later go to the night market so just  wanted to show you guys how Vientiane is so far you   know obviously we didn’t cover everything. and just  to make sure that if you’re American that you have  

Some travel tips about how to come uh especially  for your Visa process and yeah how to get from the   airport into the City and things like that. So yeah  anyways thanks a lot for watching I hope to see  

You guys in the next one thanks a lot for joining  and as always stay hydrated I love you take care [Music] peace

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This is my first time traveling to Laos as an American! I had no idea what I would need to travel to this hidden gem in Southeast Asia. If you are an American traveler going to Laos, you need to watch this video for Laos travel essentials before going to the country. Laos travel is fun, but if it is your first time In Laos, American Travelers need to know this!

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