A model parades an outfit by Australian label Micky In The Van at Melbourne Fashion Week in Melbourne on November 18, 2021. As Australian labels were paraded on the runway at Melbourne Fashion Week, protests took place outside by female warehouse workers claiming they are earning up to $10 less an hour than male counterparts. (Photo by William West/AFP Photo)

Participants prepare kimchi, a traditional Korean dish of spicy fermented cabbage and radish, during a kimchi making festival at the Jogyesa Buddhist temple in Seoul on December 2, 2021, before it is distributed among the less privileged from the local neighbourhood. (Photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP Photo)

Members of staff makes last minute touch ups of wax figure Chewbacca, from Star Wars, on display at “Star Wars At Madame Tussauds” on May 12, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)

Young Legong dancer portrait, Ubud, Bali on October 25, 2023. While the childrens' parents are out working, in pursuits including farming, fishing and clothes making, their offspring spend the long sunny days making their own fun, and as these pictures show not a minute is wasted. (Photo by David Lazar/Animal News Agency)

A three minute time exposure shows the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch Complex 40, Thursday, January 7, 2021 in Port Canaveral, Fla. The rocket is carrying the Turksat 5A satellite for Turkey. (Photo by Malcolm Denenark/Florida Today via AP Photo)

Groups of youngsters are still heading out on the lash in Newcastle’s city centre on October 3, 2020 despite being just minutes away from the UK’s largest single Covid outbreak – Northumbria University confirms 770 cases among students. (Photo by North News and Pictures/The Sun)

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.