We spent 30 nights and 31 days in Laos, during which we spent a total of €706.83. A fairly pricey month for a country with a reputation for being cheap — but we treated ourselves a few times and moved around more than usual. That said, it's within reason when you consider that each of us spent €353 over 31 days while travelling Laos from south to north.
Laos isn't as cheap for tourists as you might expect. Since most of the country survives on a subsistence economy, you often can't buy what you need at the best price — you end up paying a decent premium for anything considered a luxury item.
Here's the breakdown of our spending during our month in Laos:
- Food: as almost always, our biggest expense. €218.88 at street stalls, local spots, and restaurants; plus another €22.20 in markets and supermarkets. The food isn't excessively expensive — you can eat decently for €1 or €2 — but it's hard to buy ingredients to cook for yourself.
- Accommodation: €119.64, which works out at an average of €4 a day. In the cities a basic room usually runs about €5 or €6. In small villages and on the islands you can often find bungalows for around €3.
- Transport: €117.03 on buses and songthaews. There are no trains in Laos and planes aren't in our budget, so most of our kilometres were covered on local buses and their equivalents, the songthaews. Boats are also common but these days far more expensive than road transport — the only boats we took were to cross rivers, reach islands, or go through the Konglor cave. Total spent on boats: €20.
- Motorbike: we hired one to do the Loop through central Laos, costing €40 in rental fees plus €14.10 in petrol.
- The visa for Laos cost us €70.74 — inflated because of the $20 penalty we had to pay for crossing into Vietnam one day late.
- On drinks we spent nearly €60. Juices and smoothies were once again a considerable expense at €34.15; alcohol came to just €13.10 — partly because we'd decided not to drink in 2012 unless someone was buying or it was a local speciality and unusually cheap — and water cost around €9.
- Entry fees: €8.60. In Laos most natural attractions charge admission — in many cases they'll even charge you to cross a bridge. To keep costs down we often had to take long detours around them.
- Laundry: €6.40. A small luxury. We usually wash by hand, but on Don Det we were doing nothing but eating, walking, and sleeping — the days turned into weeks and the dirty laundry piled up. Every other time we washed by hand.
We were in Vientiane looking for a bus heading toward Vietnam when Ilze needed the toilet. The bus station toilet was pay-to-use, so we found a quiet spot nearby to sort the situation. Unfortunately a policeman spotted her and demanded her passport. For the next hour I haggled with him over the size of the fine. In the end, rather than argue further, go to the police station, and waste more time, I paid €5 — not the €30 he'd started at — and we walked away.
The remaining €6.50 went on currency exchange, bank charges, and the like.
How much did you spend in Laos?
