In November 2012 I travelled in Lao to find spiders. The whole trip was really annoying because of the habit that the people especially in rural areas eat everything which moves there is nothing to find anymore at places where humans are near. Geckos, Snakes, Birds, Monekey Spiders and large insects...they all got eaten. Whenever i asked for Theraphosid spiders in villages people said "Yes, very delicious but whe haven`t seen any since years ."
Anyways I was able to find some spiders....

The beginning of my travel was in Luang Prabang, a really beautiful town

There is still a lot of rainforest in lao and I tried to see as much as possible by feet, bicycle or motorbike.

Along the roadsides an Agelenidae sp. is easy to find

Orb web spiders are abundant , especially  Gasteracantha sp. and  Nephila spp.

Gasteracantha sp.

besides Nephila pilipes also Nephila kuhlii can be found. Sometimes both live next to each other.

Nephila pilipes

Nephila  kuhlii

Here you can see that both species share the same place

Some spiders have amazing nets..

unknown Aranea sp.

At night it is hunting time for different  Sparassidae sp.

At one place I was told there is a Haplopelma sp. just close and one employee showed me a picture of that spider on his cellphone. When I arrived at that place unfortunately someone already took it for dinner.

Here the burrow:

At least I knew that there must be Haplopelma sp. in this area and so I was walking through the small villages the nect day to look for at least one more.

Finally in this habitat I met an old woman who told me she saw one burrow on her fields and until now no one took that spider.

So I was following her eagerly ...

Finally I found the burrow

And the spider already welcomed me

besides spiders it is also still possible to find scorpions. Of course they are also very popular escpecially in alcohol. It says the rink enhances the libido.

But Lao is still a good place to find different Mantid sp.

And with a lot of luck there are still some snakes