The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen over the sky near Inari in Lapland, Finland on February 14, 2019. (Photo by Alexander Kuznetsov/Reuters)

Clouds in Drakensberg Escarpment in the lowveld, also known as Mariepskop, South Africa in July 2019. Snapped by professional Photographer, Em Gatland, 37, from Greater Kruger, South Africa, the unique shot could easily be mistaken for a dangerous wave rather than clouds passing through a sunset. (Photo by Em Gatland/Caters News Agency)

Kazakh girls watch as the Russian Soyuz TMA-15 rocket carrying Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Frank De Winne of Belgium and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko readies for take-off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan on May 27, 2009. Three astronauts, from Canada, Belgium and Russia, blasted off for the International Space Station in a landmark mission that will double its crew to six for the first time. (Photo by Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP Photo)

A man takes pictures of the Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, as it glows on the horizon over waters of Lake Ellesmere on the outskirts of Christchurch on April 24, 2023. (Photo by Sanka Vidanagama/AFP Photo)

A cyclist rides past a tumulus tomb in Gyeongju, South Korea on November 1, 2025. (Photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP Photo)

A village girl, donning capes mostly of dried banana leaves and covered in mud, attends a mass in a bizarre annual ritual to venerate their patron saint, John the Baptist, Friday, June 24, 2016 at Bibiclat, Aliaga township, Nueva Ecija province in northern Philippines. (Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP Photo)

Sudanese cattle keepers from Dinka tribe Makal Maker (R) and Achiek Butich pose with the guns for their protection at their cattle camp in Mingkaman, Lakes State, South Sudan, on March 2, 2018. (Photo by Stefanie Glinski/AFP Photo)

Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.