A Balinese man performs a traditional dance at Art Center Denpasar on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on May 30, 2025. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

Alayah Pilgrim of Switzerland in action during the UEFA Women's EURO 2025 match between Switzerland and Norway at St. Jakob-Park in Basel, Switzerland, on July 2, 2025. (Photo by Stephane Mahe/Reuters)

A chimp motions for Santa to deliver his gift during Lion Country Safari's annual Christmas with the Chimps on Thursday, December 20, 2012. (Photo by Bruce R. Bennett/The Palm Beach Post)

Elephants munch on Christmas trees in their enclosure at Berlin's Zoologischer Garten Zoo on January 4, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. Traditionally, the animals get in the first week of the year leftover Christmas trees. (Photo by Andreas Rentz)

An Orthodox activist (Right) clashes with a gay rights campaigner during a protest outside of the State Duma, Russian Parliament's lower chamber, in downtown Moscow, January 22, 2013. (Photo by Ilya Pitalev/RIA Novosti)

Richard Silver's photographs show us the world's biggest sights like Machu Picchu in Peru or Copacabana in Brazil. His photos, however, are not simply depictions of the landmarks but planned, artistic visual constructions that, with their playful combinations of sharpness and blur, create new worlds of experience. Photo: Coliseum, Rome. (Photo by Richard Silver)

Men stroll past roadside vendors as a painted truck makes its way through the busy street in Kabul, Afghanistan, November, 1961. (Photo by Henry S. Bradsher/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

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.