Having your health in the best conditions while traveling is vital to having a nice vacation and a memorable away-from-home holiday. Experiencing a healthy journey is essential to leading a happy and full-of-success life in the time to come and to prepare ourselves in the best conditions for the next adventures of life.
Our following health travel guides are the guidelines to preparing your health before your trip; the cautions to be thought of while travelling in the country; the solutions should be thought of should a problem arises on your tour; and what do to make sure there's nothing wrong with your health after the trip.
Please keep it clear in mind that the herein guidelines are based on our general experience with traveling only and they are not from a medical professional and they are for your reference only. You, the travellers and tourists, should consult your doctor for the specific advice as well as the most-up-to-date information related to travel health. Paradissa Travel is not to be held responsible for the herebelow information.
Pre-trip Preparations
There's no compulsory vaccination required by the Lao authority for entering and traveling in the country unless you have travelled from a yellow fever infected area or an area of outbreak of an epidemic which has the potential to transmit the disease. Still Laos as well as many countries in Asia still have inadequate medical system and these destinations pose a lot of risks of health to the foreign travellers and visitors, hence having due immunizations before departure should lessen the risk of being infected with diseases from the country. The specific advice should be sought from your own doctor. The general vaccinations for a trip to Laos should include: Diphtheria and tetanus; Hepathitis A and B; Japanese B Encephalitis; Polio; Rabies; TB (Tuberculosis); Typhoid; Malaria.
Also make sure you choose the right travel insurance company. For the travellers in Laos, taking adventure tours or easy relaxing tours, insurance policies should include emergency evacuation and repatriation.
Supply of certain medication is not available or not adequate in Laos, make sure you have all the needed medication for treating headache, diarrhea, antibiotic medicines, sunburn, heatstroke, insect bites, skin infections...and other specific medications which you may need for your specific health problem.
Supply all the contact details of your kin and your travel insurance company to the travel agent or your tour company; supply your itinerary details with the details of your hotels and the tour company/travel agent to your kin, so that you are contacted whenever necessary by any party.
Cautions for Good Health While Travelling, Solutions to a Possible Health Problem While Travelling
While traveling in Laos, the potential risks to you health may be from various sources including:
Food: Make sure the restaurant you dine at is in fairly good hygienic conditions. Visually hygiene may be from judging the owners, the staff and whether the restaurant has a lot of dining guests or not. Trust the common sense that if everyone is ok, then it's more likely to be ok with you too.
Make sure all the food you eat is well-cooked. Salad, raw or undercooked food should only be trusted at a very limited high-classed restaurants and hotels only.
Make sure all the fruits you eat are not peeled and you should be the one to peel your own fruits.
Drinking water: Make sure all the water you drink is well-filtered, well-boiled or well-purified. There is a lot of bottled-water for sales and you should make sure that the seal is not broken, or otherwise that it's likely that the bottle has been refilled.
Skin fungus infections: There are a lot of risks to having skin infections with the causes from hot and humid weather, unhygienic cleaning or washing water, sleeping or using towels that used by an infected person...To lessen the risk, you should have enough suitable clothes, especially made natural materials rather than from artificial ones; always be prepared with your own facial towels and bath towels; use the common sense to check the matrix and drapes at your room.
Sunburn, heat exhaustion and heatstroke: Laos is a country with humid and hot weather. It's very likely that you suffer from heatstroke and heat exhaustion. To prevent this, make sure you wear sunglasses and hat while traveling in the sun; and that you drink plenty of water on a humid or hot day, even though you don't feel thirsty sometimes (especially for the senior travellers). When touring a site without shade, make sure you have adequate sun screen and take a short rest in the nearby shade every now and then.
Jet lag, motion sickness: Not to drink too much tea or coffee, or consume to much alcoholic drink to make sure you have sound sleep. Eat lots of vegetables and drink lots of juice. Not to spend a long time in the sun or taking a long tour or taking a long drive just after arrival. Allow reasonable time to rest and relax after each visit. Make sure the tour company don't put too many visits or activities per day on your itinerary, at least for the first few days.
Infectious diseases: There are a wide range of risks to the travellers from infectious diseases including from diarrhea (from unhygienic food and/or drinking water), dysentery (via food and drink), hepatitis (via food, drink, unhygienic tools for eating and drinking, via blood or via unsafe sex), HIV Aids (via blood and sex), intestinal worms and liver flukes (via food and drink and getting in touch with the unclean water...), typhoid (via contaminated water and food), malaria (via mosquito), dengue fever (via mosquito), Japanese B encephalitis (via mosquito).
Also exercise cautions to other risks including cuts, bites, scratches, bugs, leeches and ticks... which may harm your health while travelling.
Keep it very clear in mind that whenever you are feeling not alright with your health, you need to contact a medical professional for immediate advice. And in no situation should you try to diagnose yourself and use the medicine on your own diagnosis. Also if you can not take a tour or a visit as per itinerary, you can always come back and continue with your tour some time in the future.
Post-tour Health Examination
Normally, after each vacation, you come back home and rush for work without bothering to check on your health. But it's easy to understand that for some travellers, you work hard and you play hard. Playing too hard on your holiday combined with the change of conditions such as consuming more alcoholic drinks, having not enough sleep, moving constantly, different in time zones, cultures, moods...your immunity system doesn't work as well as it's used to. Not to mention that there are various potential risks to your health when you travel in a foreign environment. It's very likely that something is not that right with your health after your holiday and without your knowledge.
It's always better to have a check to make sure that your health is totally risk-free after each trip and you should visit your doctor and have your health checked. Should something be not right, try to recall your trip and provide as many details as possible about your trip to your doctor. Should a problem be spotted out, you are more likely to have it fixed best rather than waiting until things go too far. Be wise and healthy for the sake of your next experiences!
