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Watch out, world; here comes Laos!
by Robert Mangel
For six months in 1989 the Lao government experimented with an open-door policy towards tourism. Then it closed the door. I was one of the lucky few who stumbled into Laos that year. Compared with today--the Lao ministry of interior abolished travel passes with the stroke of a pen during March--getting around Laos was extremely difficult for Lao citizens as well as foreigners.
For example, five years ago a somewhat infamous guesthouse in Nong Khai had put out a hand-drawn map called "The Northern Trip of Laos." With fair accuracy, it showed even the neophyte how to maneuver by land from Vientiane to Luang Prabang--the Lonely Planet Indochina guidebook, with its section devoted to Laos, wasn't to be published for another two years.
I myself was one of those neophytes (about "things Laotian" anyway) and was handed the map, much worn and many times folded, by a backpacker (I myself carried a Samsonite) in the old shophouse-size Immigration office of the ministry of interior next door to the Joint Development Bank. Several days later, in mist and rain, I was on my uncertain way.
According to the map, first you took a bus (there were two in the morning and one in the afternoon) from Vientiane's morning market to Thalat near Ang (lake) Nam Ngum for 2.5 hours for 210 kip. Second, you took a 30 minute local taxi ride from Thalat to Nam Ngum for 150 kip. Third, the "ferry boat ride" (that's what the guesthouse called it) across the Nam Ngum took 3 hours and cost 300 kip. Fourth, from Ban Thahuea or Ban Houayma (both on the opposite shore) the journey continued to Vang Vieng for 1 hour and cost 300 kip. All told: 960 kip (not much more than one dollar) and 7 outright fascinating hours. This left Luang Prabang 2,500 kip (slightly more than three dollars) and 14 hours (260 kilometers) farther north.
Interestingly, there was another way to travel directly northward without crossing Ang Nam Ngum. This route took you to Vang Vieng as well: by truck (yes, truck) and the estimated time was 7 or 8 hours (that is, maybe an hour longer than what would seem at first glance to be a convoluted route--the Nam Ngum passage requiring three modes of transportation). Well, Route 13 North was then that bad. I know; I took the "road less traveled by" (in case you've forgotten, the words are Robert Frost's) even though advised not to by a well-meaning Indian road engineer whom I met by chance at breakfast at the Lane-Xang Hotel that August.
Laos was an adventure in 1989 (and indeed still is for what might be called Lao hands and newcomers alike). But for the Lao government as well as some embassies, tourists gamboling about the countryside were a real nightmare then. Then said a travel advisory (memorandum actually) dated 10 July 1989 from the US embassy in Vientiane and posted for all to see in the consulate section of the US embassy in Bangkok: "Those of us accustomed to the small foreign community in Vientiane hardly know how to react these days. Everywhere we turn, tourists, it seems, gawk and stroll, backpackers plod. Not even an evening's quiet jog is free from the hearty 'howdy' of a passel of farang."
The memo continues, "A sight they may be to us, but a concern they are becoming to our Australian and Swedish nurses. Carmel Sullivan and Inger Petersen wearily attest to the tourists' growing numbers, and dryly to their foolhardiness. Upcountry they gaily backpack, and feverishly they return to seek solace and treatment from our medical establishment! They tipple "lao-lao," a poisonous brew, and worse. "Lao-hai" is an unfermented rice wine pressed without the least smidgeon of Pasteur's findings!
"And they hop, blithely, onto northbound trucks, the beauties of Luang Prabang to savor, all innocent that they may meet fatal dangers by the way of brigands on the long, mountainous road.
"But how do they get here? It's apparently easy. Bt1,000 to selected travel agents in Patpong, Sukhumvit and Nong Khai will procure a visa over the river. It cost us Bt300 to get a tourist visa for friends at the Lao embassy, so someone is earning a tidy fee on Sathorn Tai--no doubt for services rendered.
"Tourists are welcome--at least, to us. But this is a land of minimal, at best, medical, hotel and administrative infrastructure. A mite of caution would not be bad counsel."
Now it's five years later. Lao President Nouhak and His Majesty Bhumibol, King of Thailand, have officially opened the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge. Visas are suddenly available to businessmen and tourists "on arrival" at all border crossings (not just Wattay airfield or Tha Deua). The laissez passer (travel pass) is dead as a dinosaur. And Vientiane's travel agents are complaining of an inadequate supply of air-conditioned busses for their minions who now sometimes flow across the Mekong in greater numbers daily than the two flights from Bangkok on Tuesdays and Thursdays combined.
The pictures accompanying this article prove that the national government hasn't been asleep at the switch regarding moving herds of well-heeled visitors around--a note to all tourists, keep your "platinum" American Express cards handy. While quite a few foreign banks opened last year, and several bridges opened (and are opening) this year, next year many, many roads will have been wholly rebuilt from their foundation up--already you can drive to Vang Vieng (160 kilometers) in not much more time than it takes to pack a picnic lunch, change into casual clothes, and top off the Toyota. (For those of you interested in statistics, here's a revealing one: "Regarding the government's 1991 to 1996 Public Investment Program, 92% of the 38% allocated to the transport sector--the highest of all sectors--is devoted to road investment, and much international assistance is being provided in addition," says consultant Georgina Carnegie, author of an investment guidebook to Laos published three months ago.)
The hoopla for the Friendship Bridge (originally conceived in 1956) was certainly deserved. But it is worth noting that a Friendship Highway (Thai Route 2) was built several decades ago on the opposite side of the river and to this day still runs 620 concrete kilometers from Nong Khai to Bangkok. In fact it's in the process of being dramatically widened. A telling footnote about this highway is the fact that traffic engineers initially underestimated its inaugural use by about 4 to 1. In other words, when 1,000 vehicles were expected to use the highway in any given week, no less than 4,000 drove upon it! (The origin of Bangkok gridlock?)
So it wasn't really wishful thinking after all on the part of Australia's Transfield when they decided to build a high-tech 200-meter-long private-venture toll-bridge across the Nam River at Tha Ngon on a build-own-operate-transfer basis. This is the direct route to Switzerland-like Ang Nam Ngum. This is the direct route to Cameroon Highlands-like Phou Khao Khouai. This is the direct route across the Vientiane alluvial plain to such places as the Vientiane Zoological Gardens where (some say) a thousand species of orchids thrive and a like number of hot-weather deer ramble in the Lao wild. Even now, none of these areas is more than a two-hour drive from Vientiane.
These three sites are obviously jewels in the national tourist authority's crown, which is why foresighted American Express has its agent in the capital already. (Transfield, by the way, also constructed the Border Control Facility on the Lao side of the Mekong at the foot of the Friendship Bridge. "It is also a sponsor and lead developer," said John McGarry, chief executive for Transfield International, "of the privately financed 600 MW Nam Theun 2 hydro power station which, when complete, will provide substantial benefits to the Laotian economy.")
Last but not least, for equally spectacular scenery, put it on your 1996 Lao agenda to motor down Skanska's two-stage road rebuilding project from Vientiane-Thabok and Thabok-Pakkading. In fact go now if, reminiscent of World War Two movies like The Bridge Over the River Kwai, you want to see the still-in-use assortment of picturesque Bailey bridges before they're altogether demolished. Using the latest in Swedish road-building techniques and equipment, Skanska is enabling the indigenous Lao farmer to market his crops at 20th-century speed. (Remember, the Lao farmer has much more water at his disposal for irrigation than his cousin across the Mekong. For Lao farmers, an enormous market--the population of Thailand now stands at 58 million--is now finally accessible across the Friendship Bridge.)
Someone recently wrote: "There was no Berlin Wall to pull down in Southeast Asia, so no single event has marked the gradual reintegration of the region. Instead, its coming together is marked by a series of small events: a border-crossing opened, a new flight available there. Gradually, the parts of the region that have not enjoyed Asia's economic boom are beginning to join in." Watch out, world; here comes Laos! Or more likely Laos can wait for the over-populated world to come to it: for its abundant minerals, for its abundant water resources, for its pristine tourist attractions, for the crops that can be grown on its verdant and under-populated soil. Or as Georgina Carnegie states the case: "It is now possible to locate a business in Laos and reach a possible market of over 200 million consumers residing within 100 kilometers of Lao borders."
Seen from the Mekong's left-bank, time is another ace up the long Lao sleeve. Anytime now, Laos is a gold mine waiting to happen; in fact a good number of prospectors are already here and the count is rapidly growing.