Laos

Coverage = only 5 cities: Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, Pakse - all Gen3

Everywhere except Vientiane: silver car w/ 2-bar roof rack + black side mirrors visible

Guatemala: Spanish signage + Latin-American environment → Guatemala; Lao script → Laos.

Drives on the right (Thailand = left)

Thailand: Driving side is the fastest Laos-vs-Thailand decider.

Plates short & yellow (commercial = white, government = blue)

Thailand: Yellow on ORDINARY cars → Laos; also check driving side.

Cambodia: Yellow plates → Laos.

Lao script: compact & curvy with diacritics above/below - like Thai but with fewer straight lines; stop signs have 2 characters (Thai: 3), sometimes Latin 'STOP' below

Thailand: 2-character stop sign + right-hand traffic → Laos.

Majority Buddhist - ornate temples w/ gold-leaf detail (Thailand/Cambodia similar)

Striped curbs in many colours (red/yellow/black + white) throughout; some lamp posts w/ red-white diagonal stripes that stop above the base

Square concrete poles w/ pinhole rows top-to-bottom

Thailand: Driving side + script decide.

Sri Lanka: Sinhala script → Sri Lanka.

Cambodia: Khmer script → Cambodia.

Square concrete black-white bollards with black band(s); red-white cuboid bollards a few metres off the road

Thailand: Driving side + script.

Indonesia: Indonesian Latin script → Indonesia.

Communist government - hammer-and-sickle flags appear

Mekong riverside, low mountains/hills, palms; ex-royal capital & UNESCO site - historical dark-wood + French colonial architecture; blue sign backs only here

Rugged karst mountain range visible from almost everywhere (least coverage of the 5 cities; actual coverage lies south of the map label); very touristy (hotel/guesthouse signs)

Only area without the roof-rack car; much rural coverage SE - Thailand/Cambodia toss-ups: check driving side (TH left) & plates

Road 450 east: made entirely of concrete blocks, one of the few divided highways; Nong Beuak divided highway = distinctive street lamps (also on road 13's divided part - different angle); conservation-area road: hilly + dry forest, good pavement w/ coloured curbs + dashed outer lines (only single-lane road with b&w / y&w curbs)

The only trekker in Laos: the monumental Patuxai arch war memorial (partly tripod coverage)

Very flat - only visible mountains are across the Mekong in Thailand; soil slightly red-tinged (less than Pakse); on the map hidden under the 'Mukdahan' label - look west of Xeno

Distinct red soil, uniquely dry vegetation + dry hills; the 1380 m Mekong bridge is the only covered major bridge in Laos