Halfway down the Danube

Laos, Day Nine

Bullet points about Laos.

-- Laotians are first cousins to Thais, like Spanish and Portuguese, or maybe even Swedes and Danes. But Thailand is a big country -- sixty million or so -- and quite wealthy by regional standards. Laos is much smaller, just six million, and much poorer.

You will be shocked to hear that Thais look down on Laotians as poor, backwards mountain cousins. And that Laotians look at Thailand with a mixture of one part envy, one part admiration, three parts resentment.

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether immortality would be all that.

-- The most popular alcoholic drink in Laos is the national beer: BeerLao. But BeerLao deserves a post of its own. Wait for it.

-- Small, quiet, efficient Japanese air conditioners have colonized most of Southeast Asia. But not Laos. Most aircons here seem to be at least 20 years old, and I've seen a few units that must date back to before the 1975 Revolution. They're big, they're boxy, they're intrusive, and wow are they loud. I've had a couple of meetings progress in installments, because every few minutes the aircon would cut in and BRRRRRROOOOOOMMMMMM shut down conversation for a minute or two.

I know that Laos is the final destination for a lot of Asia's used cars. (Apparently about half the cars on the road here are secondhand from Korea.) I wonder if the same could be true of aircons. It is a little striking how there aren't any new ones.

-- Vientiane is about 18 degrees north latitude, which puts us firmly in the tropics. I knew that, of course, but little things keep surprising me. Geckoes skittering around on the walls. The first prickle and sting of sunburn. The familiar need to drink water and more water. The sudden swift onset of night after sunset. Canopus rising in the southern sky.

I lived in the tropics for seven years, but haven't been back for five. So this is a whole series of sensory taps on the shoulder and tugs on the sleeve.

-- Walking around in the evenings, I've been offered women half a dozen or so times, Marijuana three times, and opium once. This is totally normal in urban Southeast Asia, but it still seems striking in a nominally Communist country.

-- And speaking of sales and marketing, Laos also has the Southeast Asian thing where, as soon as you walk into a shop and look at something, however casually, the shopkeeper is instantly at your elbow. "Sabaidee... good evening... you like?"

This has always seemed counterproductive to me, as I end up either running away ("no, just looking, no, thank you, no, sorry...") or walking around with my eyes resolutely lifted away from the merchandise. Which does somewhat inhibit the shopping process.

But maybe it's just me.

Next: the Museum of the Revolution

Posted by douglas at February 6, 2006 08:40 AM