Laos - A Secret Waiting to be Found?

Some years ago when I was living in Bangkok, two friends from Hawaii - a husband and wife - came to stay there for some three months.  The week before they were due to return to Hawaii, the wife mentioned she was sorry they didn't get to visit Laos while they were in the region as it was somewhere she always wanted to go.    Well that was all she had to say.  Within two days, the three of us were on a plane from Bangkok heading to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.  That was also my first visit to the country but short though it was, it made me want to go back and see more of the country and get to know the people better.


Since that first visit, I have been back several times, and each time I have been more impressed.  It is a country whose people were more or less "kept-to-heel" during the French occupation when the whole region was called French Indo-China.  For many westerners today it is a small country somewhere in South East Asia that was heavily bombed by America during the Vietnam war and it is a country that is now one of the last remaining communist countries. So why bother with it?  For years it has been somewhat ignored by the western nations because it has such friendly relations with China and it receives much aid from there.  However, being friendly with China is a norm for Laos.  China is a big powerful country that shares a border.  Is it not sensible to be friendly with it?


To many people who have not visited this part of the world,  the idea of a country being communist conjures up pictures of scenes of grim dour buildings and clothing like we saw in the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, so why bother going there?


Let's talk about it for a short while.


Laos is a small country with a small population and when you go there you find a remarkably peaceful and quiet place.  Vientiane, the capital, is a city that was virtually designed by the French influence.  It has wide boulevards, a large memorial reminescent of the Arc de Triumph in Paris, and  so many old French colonial buildings and cafés...... in addition to beautiful pagodas and temples.  In fact it would not be difficult to use

your imagination and pretend you were in Paris except for the hot climate and the tropical trees and plants.  Traffic is almost nil and what there is obeys to the letter the rule of the road.  It stops when a red light appears it goes when it is green.  It never passes another vehicle on the inside and it will stop at pedestrian crossings whether it is a car or a motor bike.  So very different from here in Cambodia where the traffic never stops and goes every-which-way regardless of whether there is a red or green light or any other sign!!!!


Laos is an orderly country.  Taxis and tuk-tuks (the local means of public transport) line up in an orderly fashion waiting in turn for the next customer.  No individual drivers shouting at people for business. Politeness is the order of the day.  Whether all this is due to it having a communist regime, I have no idea.   I have not and don't in tend to delve into the political "goings-on" in the country.   There are, of course poor people like in every country throughout the world, but there is hardly a beggar to be seen.   The city is quiet even at night and most places close reasonably early except for the few inevitable bars that cater mostly to foreigners.


So why go there? 


The town of Luang Prabang is a popular destination for tourists, but that is it.  It is renowned for its many beautiful and exotic temples, so many people just fly in from Bangkok direct to Luang Prabang, stay two nights and fly back to Bangkok.  They have then seen Laos - or so they think!!  They have missed out on seeing the beautiful city of Vientiane and the equally peaceful city of Pakse where you feel that time has been standing still for the past twenty years.


They miss out on watching the sunset as they eat dinner in open-air restaurants beside the Mekong - a spectacular scene.  They miss out on driving maybe forty miles outside the city of Vientiane, renting their own private floating restaurant  for just a few dollars and having a two-hour lunch as their restaurant quietly glides

down one of the tributaries of the Mekong past beautiful scenary and age old fishing and agricultural villages, traditions and scenes.  They miss out on meeting a people who are hospitable and friendly but who are moving forward and yet keeping their culture.


In the years now since that first visit of mine, I have seen so much progress there.  Highways are being built, new buidlings are being constructed but they are ones that are in keeping with the original architecture of the city in both height and design.  A new rail link has been built between Bangkok and Vientiane that greatly helps both people and trade.  Vientiane has a modern but small airport and unlike so many places it is one that is suitable for the size of the country.  It has just two ramps, but they are enough to handle the number of jets that fly in and there is provision to add more if the need arises.  Smaller aircraft park out on the ramp.


Recently I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting with and working with students from the University of Laos.  These are the New Generation of citizens eager to bring forward and improve their country.  I first came in contact with them when twelve students from the Business Faculty came to Phnom Penh last year to take part in "Business Challenge" - a competition organized by the National University of Management (NUM) here in Phnom Penh.  Universities from all over the region entered teams who presented details of businesses they intend starting.  They are hypothetical businesses, but they have to present all details of the process of starting the business from funding to budgeting, to organization to actually doing business.  It is an interesting event and an impressive one.


The students with whom I spoke on my very recent visit to Vientiane lamented the fact that so few people visit their country, but also the fact that the majority of those who do go there are back-packers whose main interest is the drug scene and just "hanging out".  They are not interested in the country itself.  Laos is part of a small area combining a part of three countries that is known as "The Golden Triangle" - Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and Laos - which is notorious for its drug business.  Security at the airport is very tight when it comes to drugs, and many people are caught trying to smuggle it out of the country and then they complain and wonder why they are arrested.  Most of the young  people with whom I spoke said they would like more "normal" foreigners to go there and see the countryand meet the people.


As for me? I would like to see more foreigners going also and having an opportunity to meet with these young University people  - though I am not sure at this moment how that could be arranged all the time - who like the Cambodian students are of a very high calibre. Much as many foreigners would not like to admit it, these young students and graduates would be the equal of most students of the Ivy League Universities in the USA or of Oxford or Cambridge.


Is Laos still a secret waiting to be found or are people just afraid to go there because they hear it is a communist country and don't really know much about it?.  Or do they not not want to fly on Lao Airlines because they have turbo-prop planes and not jets?  So many people are what I call "snob flyers"!!!  But other airlines go there too like Thai Airways and Vietnam Airlines.  If it is a secret, then I hope people will hear about it soon and visit, not just Luang Prabang for two days, but as much of the country as they can.  They will not be disappointed.