Laos and the wisdom in its smiles

In a land overlooked by travellers, I found a serenity that followed me home.

Normally, Thailand is known as the “Land of Smiles”, with smiling a cultural trait used to express a range of emotions. Only it was neighbouring Laos, quiet and often overlooked, that truly taught me the meaning and value of a smile.

Tourists visit Laos’s neighbours, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, while Laos is always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and rarely the first choice on a traveller’s itinerary. So when I crossed into Laos from Thailand on a sun-baked afternoon, expecting little more than another stamp on my passport, I found instead a country slow, unhurried yet content, a country where immigration officers smiled as they stamped my passport as if welcoming a long-lost relative. 

In Vientiane, that smile seemed stitched into daily life. The traffic lights were philosophical, changing whenever they felt they should, while people simply smiled and waited! My tuk-tuk driver smiled when he didn’t know the road. The cafe owner smiled when the Wi-Fi stopped working. Coming from Bengaluru, where the day begins with impatience and noise has its own grammar, I mistook this gentle silence for inefficiency. But slowly, the smiles softened something in me even as I watched monks walk barefoot on the Mekong riverfront, collecting alms, heads bowed with serene smiles conveying gratitude. 

As I stumbled through a small market near Pha That Luang, Laos’s revered stupa, I found a young man selling woven scarves made by his grandmother. I bought two, because his smile seemed woven into the fabric. Nearby, an old woman selling French baguettes stuffed with papaya salad laughed when I tried to pronounce the Laotian word for thank you.

Luang Prabang was another smile-laden dream in slow motion. At dawn, the town turned saffron as monks walked barefoot through misty streets. At dusk, the same streets glowed with lanterns. I remember sitting by the Mekong, watching children leap into the water, smiling as they played. 

Yet change has begun to hum at the edges. A new high-speed train slices through mountains once ruled by silence. Tourists arrive in waves, making locals worry that Laos may lose the very stillness that defines it. But for now, the kindness and the smiles remain. This small landlocked country has endured colonialism, poverty and neglect, yet it meets the world not with complaints but with a smiling composure. Its people smile not because life is easy, but because they have learnt that patience is a choice to be made quietly. 

Back in Bengaluru, when traffic snarls, WiFi collapses or plans fall apart, I realise Laos has followed me home in invisible ways. I miss the patience of its people, the hush of its mornings, and the smiles before every word. I think of the Mekong, the river that never felt rushed yet never stopped. A country that doesn’t forget to smile back, Laos taught me
that smiling is not denying difficulties but a type of dignity, a rare lesson for a hurried world.