Surviving Laos: How Travel Breaks You… and Rebuilds You

We came for the art and stayed for the chaos, in praise of the weird and wonderful creativity of David Choe, before freefalling into our travels through Laos. Visa headaches and awful currency conversions, a total internet blackout that forced us to improvise like cavemen, bakeries that somehow forget to sell bread and supermarkets that are optical illusions. Scott recounts his moped crash, it sounds bad, but honestly it’s more like Jay riding a motorbike for the first time in The Inbetweeners. Shelby goes face first into the largest spider we have ever seen, and our Airbnb nightmares escalate from exploding water pipes to mouldy damp and a house literally running off a caravan battery while ants and rolling power cuts keep us on our toes. In "Scott’s WTF of the Week" we tease a bizarre real life story about someone living where you would least expect, and in "Shelby’s Good Vibes Only" we introduce a local hero whose unconventional way of rewarding kids for their hard work is guaranteed to make you smile, and finally in our “Travel Segment” we share our raw first impressions of Lao. Scott's WTF of the Week🏠 Man Arrested for Allegedly Living in Crawl Space of Oregon Home 📅 Sunday 7th September 2025🔗 ⁠https://news.sky.com/story/man-arrested-for-allegedly-living-in-crawl-space-of-oregon-housing-complex-13426044Shelby’s Good Vibes Only🍎 Bodega Owner Gives Kids Free Food for Good Grades: “I Like Seeing the Smile on Their Faces” 📅 Tuesday 13th May 2025🔗https://www.today.com/food/people/bodega-owner-free-food-kids-good-grades-rcna206372Chapters(00:00) - Welcome and Introduction(03:16) - Arrival Experience in Laos(09:50) - Challenges of Daily Life in Laos(16:11) - Embracing Travel Challenges(23:27) - Accommodation Issues in Laos(27:08) - Scotts WTF of the Week(34:53) - Shelby’s Good Vibes Only(38:19) - Travel Segment(42:53) - Closing Thoughts and Future Adventures---------------------------------------------------------------SubscribeIf you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could we ask you to please consider any or all of these: Subscribe, Follow, Like, Share and leave a short Review? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.- "Yalla Habibi - Let’s go, my friend!"Watch Our Shorts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠---------------------------------------------------------------Transcript Keyword SummaryYalla Habibi, Podcast, Episode 68, Travel, Laos, Luang Prabang, Visa, Airbnb, Jungle, Mountains, National Parks, Hiking, Camping, Moped, Southeast Asia, Local Culture, Community, Adventure, Humour, Personal Reflections, Scott, Shelby, Shopping, Buddhist, David Choe, Drop Dead Fred, Ricky Stanicky, Beetlejuice, Scott's WTF of the Week, Shelby's Good Vibes Only, Travel SegmentTranscript Quotes"We filled in the form on the plane and got in the queue and then she said, no you've got to fill in a different form as well… it was really long and confusing.""If you zoom out from where we are, you see this tiny dot of population and then it's just mountainous jungle for hundreds of miles. This is probably the most remote we've been.""It's like if you inherited a cabin off in the jungle that no one's been to for 20 years… mold, damp, power outages, super slippy outside but it has its quirks.""Everyone's so confident on their bikes here… there's no patiently waiting, you just have to go for every gap, and that makes it intimidating for a beginner like me.""You wouldn't be able to do a weekly shop in the supermarket; you need to stop at multiple places – fruit and veg market, bakery – just to get what you need.""A bodega owner in Staten Island rewards kids who bring in their report cards with free snacks, cash, and smiles – he says, 'I like seeing the smile on their faces, it makes me happy."