How We Met (Spoiler: It Wasn't Awkward)
I was sitting in a guesthouse café in Luang Prabang, nursing my third Vietnamese coffee and pretending to write, when a girl with a nose ring and mud on her hiking boots dropped into the chair opposite mine. "Are you waiting for people?" Saskia asked, nodding at the empty seats.
I wasn't, but within an hour, Finn had wandered over from the hostel next door, then Delphine rolled up on a motorbike, Tomás appeared with a dog he'd somehow befriended, and Ngaio showed up because Saskia texted her saying "found some normal ones". None of us had planned this. None of us knew each other. And yet somehow, by the time the street lights flickered on, we'd already decided to spend the next week together.
This is the thing about Laos that people don't tell you: it moves slowly enough to make friendships feel real, and fast enough that you're constantly discovering things together.
Day One: Feeding Our Faces (and Each Other's Stories)
We started with food, because Saskia is a proper foodie and the rest of us were hungry and reasonably easy to manipulate.
The Mekong Meals Food Tour with 15+ Tastings Mekong Meals Food Tour with 15+ Tastings was exactly the kind of operation we needed: no sitting around a tour bus, no manufactured charm. Our guide, a woman named Noi who'd cooked in her family's restaurant for forty years, took us straight into the back streets where tourists mostly ignore. We started at a vendor selling sticky rice by the kilo, moved to a stall doing something extraordinary with fish and chilli paste, then somehow ended up at a night market eating liver salad from a grandmother who didn't speak English but understood "more of that, please" in any language.
By the time we'd hit our tenth tasting, Finn was telling us about a tree-planting operation he'd worked on in Ecuador. Delphine countered with a story about a broken shoulder and a Cambodian taxi driver who'd insisted on driving her to the airport with his own shoulder. Tomás kept saying things were "increíble" and actually meaning it. Ngaio sat quietly, observing, the way you do when you're still figuring out if people are genuine or just very good at travel small talk.
By dessert—a transcendent sticky mango situation—we were genuine.
Days Two and Three: Into the Forest
Finn had done the reading. (Finn is one of those people. We grew to love him for this and occasionally resent him for it.)
The Nalan Trail Kmu Ethnic Experience - 2days forest trek with homestay Nalan Trail Kmu Ethnic Experience - 2days forest trek with homestay. required commitment, and we were still in the phase where everything felt like an adventure rather than actual suffering. The walk took us through a national park, past bamboo groves so dense they looked like green cathedrals, and up through mountain valleys that felt genuinely removed from anything resembling a tourist trail.
Our guide—a Kmu man named Kham—didn't give us the sanitised version of anything. When Delphine asked about village traditions, he gave us the actual story, not the tourism board summary. When Tomás asked if the horses on the trail were okay, Kham laughed and said most of them were better cared for than the people in Vientiane.
The homestay was simple: wooden floors, a mosquito net, a family who fed us rice and vegetables and regarded our terrible Lao with genuine amusement. Ngaio and I shared a room and stayed up late talking about why we both travel alone and whether that made us braver or just better at solitude. (We concluded it's probably both, depending on the day.)
Finn arrived back from his walk covered in leeches and announced this proudly, as though he'd won something.
Day Four: Boats and Waterfalls
We split up for a morning, which felt revolutionary after three days of constant togetherness.
Delphine did the Private Tour: Pak Ou Cave and Kuang Si Waterfall Tour from Luang Prabang Private Tour: Pak Ou Cave and Kuang Si Waterfall Tour from Luang Prabang, heading upriver in a wooden boat to see a cave filled with thousands of Buddha statues left by pilgrims across centuries. She came back slightly transformed—the kind of quiet that comes from standing somewhere genuinely sacred. She didn't talk much about it, which was somehow more eloquent than if she had.
Tomás had scheduled Pony Riding in Luang Prabang Pony Riding in Luang Prabang, which seemed incongruous until he explained that Laos has exactly one horse-riding outfit and it's run by people who actually respect the animals. He came back talking about Hmong horses and local villages and his inner thighs, in that order. He also came back with a new theory that horses are better judges of character than humans. We didn't argue.
The rest of us wandered through the night markets, bought things we didn't need, and argued agreeably about dinner.
Day Five: The Sunset That Changed Everything
This is the night that gets looked back on.
We did the Luang Prabang Mekong Sunset Cruise and Hot Pot Dinner Luang Prabang Mekong Sunset Cruise and Hot Pot Dinner as a full crew. It sounds touristy written down. It wasn't, probably because Laos moves at a pace that resists tourism even when tourism is literally happening on your boat.
We drifted downriver as fishermen cast nets and kids splashed about and the light turned the water into something out of a film nobody makes anymore. We ate hot pot at a tiny riverside place, cooking our own dinner in a shared pot, and somehow this simple fact—that we were all eating from the same broth—felt like a ceremony.
Ngaio got drunk on Beerlao (just two, but she's a lightweight and we tease her for it). Saskia told us why she started writing about food. Finn admitted he was terrified of going home. Delphine put her head on Tomás's shoulder and nobody made it weird. I realized I couldn't remember what my life felt like before five days ago.
Day Six and Seven: The Ones We Don't Talk About Much
Some things about travel are private.
We walked. We ate. We sat in cafés and didn't always talk. Finn and I got caught in a rainstorm and didn't bother running. Saskia and Delphine took a motorbike to somewhere neither of them could pronounce and came back laughing about something we weren't part of, and that was fine.
On the last morning, we all knew better than to make it weird with declarations. We exchanged numbers and Instagram handles, which we'll actually use. Tomás promised to send photos of the dog. Ngaio said "you're all a bit mad, but I like it."
Finn had already booked a night train to Vientiane. The rest of us weren't ready for Luang Prabang to end, which is probably the best compliment you can give a place.
The Thing About Laos
There's something in the water here—or maybe it's the absence of something. The pace is wrong for keeping walls up. The food is too good to eat alone. The Mekong keeps moving regardless of your schedule, which is somehow comforting.
We came as five strangers who'd all learned to travel solo. We left as five people who'd learned that solo doesn't always mean alone. None of us planned it that way. None of us are the type to admit we're the sentimental kind.
But we all booked the same night train to Vientiane.
Well. Except Tomás. He's staying another week. He's already texted a photo of two more dogs.
