An offline companion for Laos
Show a driver where you are going in Lao script they can read across a windscreen. Know what the ride should cost before you agree. Works with the phone in aeroplane mode, because that is when you need it.
Made for the awkward moments
For the bus station at six in the morning with two percent battery and no signal, and for the driver who has just named a price you cannot judge. Everything here loads instantly, offline, in Lao and English at the same time.
01 · Show driver
Pick a destination and hold up the phone. The Lao name and address fill the screen in black on white, with the fair fare underneath in Lao and Western numerals.
02 · Fair fare
Ranges, never a single number, by town, vehicle, distance, time of day and group size. It shows the opening price to expect and gives you a line of Lao to say back.
03 · Offline everything
Phrases for the moments that cost money or safety, emergency numbers that dial, how to get between towns and what each leg costs, all stored on the phone.
04 · Places
Every one of the eighteen provinces, grouped by what a place is, each with its opening hours and entry price. Four of them carry the World Heritage mark. Tap a row and you get the driver card for it.
05 · Eat and sleep
3,657 named places taken from OpenStreetMap once and carried in the app, so the list is still there when Overpass is down or the valley has no signal. 870 of them have a telephone number.
06 · Ask
A question in any of the ten languages gets an answer about this country, not the internet at large. It knows the places, the fares and the festivals in the app, and it takes you to them.
07 · Travel together
Turn a route into an open trip, motorbike rides included, and other signed-in travellers ask to join. Accept them and you can message on the trip’s board, see how you are connected, and add their stops to your own plan.
Counted from the app, not rounded up
Opening hours and entry prices are seeded from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and from OpenStreetMap. They are not all verified, and the app says so on the screen that shows them. Every listing has a report button that comes straight to us.
If you run a place here
OpenStreetMap carries a pin for some and nothing for the rest, and a tour company has no shopfront to pin at all. Send us your details and we will put you in the app. No account, no fee, and nothing reaches a traveller until a person has read it.
In testing now
Sabaidee is in closed testing while Google reviews it. Testing is invite only, so write to us and we will add you. When it reaches the store for everyone, we will tell you the day it happens.