Laos

Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia and the least visited, which suits it. Luang Prabang sits at the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Khan, a town of temples and French colonial shophouses and the daily alms-giving procession that happens at dawn regardless of who is watching. The Mekong runs the length of the country and river travel is still the most honest way to move through it. The Plain of Jars in the north - thousands of ancient stone vessels scattered across a plateau, their purpose still debated - is one of Southeast Asia's strangest and most undervisited archaeological sites.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Mekong slow boat routes, Luang Prabang's morning markets, Plain of Jars timing and the Lao larb recipes that the tourist restaurants simplify and the family kitchens do not.