Laos – After years of war and isolation, Southeast Asia’s most pristine environment, intact cultures.
Laos smallest and second least populous province, wedged between the Mekong River border with Thailand and Luang Nam Tha Province, has a population of just 113,500. In earlier times Bokeo was known as Hua Khong (Head of the Mekong); its current name means Gem Mine, a reference to minor sapphire deposits in Huay Xai district.
Bokeo Province
The Bokeo Province borders both Thailand and Myanmar, and is less than 100km from China, and so it has become a focus of the much-ballyhooed ‘Economic Quadrangle’, a four-nation trade zone envisioned mainly by corporate entities in Thailand and China.
Bokeo Province
Despite its diminutive size Bokeo harbors 34 ethnicities, the second-highest number of ethnic groups per province (after Luang Nam Tha) in the country. They include Lad Huay (Lenten), Khamu, Akha, Hmong, Mien, Kui, Phai, Lamet, Samtao, Tahoy, Shan, Phu Thai, Thai Dam, Thai Khao, Thai Daeng, Thai Lu, Phuan, Thai Nai, Ngo, Kalorn, Phuvan, Musoe (Lahu)and Chinese. Bokeo is the only province with a significant population of Lahu, a hill tribe common in northern Myanmar and Thailand.
Bokeo Province
For years the tourist industry in Laos has been pushing a circular overland itinerary that takes in Luang Prabang, Udomxai, Luang Nam Tha and Bokeo. With the reopening and upgrading of the road between Huay Xai and Luang Nam Tha, this notion is getting closer to reality. In the mid-1990s a Thai company won the bid for an aid financed road project that would eventually produce a direct land route from Thailand to China through Laos – including a new bridge over the Mekong between Chiang Khong and Huay Xai.
