Laos: Discover it before the rest do

Vic Albornoz Lactaoen, Contributor, Vientiane

Laos seems like a long shot to become Southeast Asia's next big thing. The food doesn't win any prizes, the roads are severely potholed by frequent flooding and locals regard the prospect of increased tourism with a sunny indifference that exceeds even Mediterranean proportions.

Laos is the least developed and most enigmatic of the three former French Indochinese states. A ruinous sequence of colonial power, internal conflict and unbending socialism finally brought the country to its knees in the 1970s. But while the big time is a long way off, the little things make Laos a great place to visit.

Vientiane, capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, sometimes seems to be all things to all tourists. I've met American veterans of the Vietnam War who remember the city as a dark jungle hideaway where opium was easier to buy than beer. Across the Mekong River in Thailand, people warned me that Vientiane and all of Laos is primitive and dangerous. For low- budget backpackers, the city is a paradise of hot showers and sit-down toilets. Well-heeled Western tourists admire its fine European-style restaurants and luxury hotels.

Vientiane has many reminders of French colonialism. France ruled Laos from the late 19th century until 1953, when the Southeast Asian country was granted full sovereignty. On street signs, French is as common as Laotian. And the French influence lives on in shuttered colonial villas, with their pastel paint peeling and a lone buffalo feeding in one overgrown garden.

If you come to Vientiane for history, you will be disappointed. Guidebooks list a handful of Buddhist temples and stately landmarks -- That Luang; Wat Sisaket, with 6,800 Buddhas; and the climbable victory Monument -- as well as the Revolutionary Museum, but the city was largely razed in 1828 by invaders from Siam (today's Thailand). Little of historical importance remains.

But what Vientiane may lack in history, it charms with its present-day details, as dazzling as any gold-leaf flecked Buddha. The labyrinth of stalls at the morning market sells imported manufactured goods, woodcarvings and furniture, silverware, gold, jewelry and fabrics. Unlike in Thailand, the shops open late, the dogs are friendly and taxi drivers don't cheat you.

The tourist neighborhood surrounding the city's central water fountain is full of higher-priced hotels. This area also caters to the tourist who has overdosed on fried rice and noodle soup. I've enjoyed Italian pizzas and prix fixed French dinners prepared by expatriate chefs for less than US five dollars. But don't miss such local favorites as pate sandwiches on freshly baked baguettes, sticky rice with grilled chicken and papaya salad, iced lemonade (nam manow) sold by vendors with a blender and stack of limes.

Several watering holes are also here, where tourists and expats share US$1.25 pitchers of Beer Lao or local moonshine rice whiskey called lao-lao. A shot costs about a quarter; be sure to pour the first one on the floor for good luck and to please the building's resident spirit.

Vientiane's real treasures, however, are its people -- residents and non. Laotians see few Westerners, tourists or otherwise. They don't seem to be "corrupted" yet by outside influences, so maybe the government's cautious approach to tourism is right.

"We've all fallen in love with Laos," said Sarah, an Englishwoman on a year's contract with a Swiss Development Agency. We sat, at adjacent tables, at the Scandinavian Bakery -- it's an expatriate's watering hole; CNN plays on the TV screen upstairs. Foreign aid is one of the backbones of the Laotian economy, and Vientiane's tourist population is almost invisible next to the hundreds of resident foreigners.

Most like Sara, are both intoxicated and frustrated by the country - "the people are wonderful," she told me, but nothing ever changes."

I enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with some passing foreign journalists and aid workers, and found their company useful, because guidebooks to Laos are quickly obsolete. Vientiane, thanks to its French heritage, is a restaurant town, but quality fluctuates. Sarah's friend Martin steered me to an Indian restaurant, which serves excellent South Indian food for around $5.00.

Another foreigner gave me his list of favorite "upscale" restaurants, including an excellent Italian bistro. Upscale, in Vientiane, means dinner for less than $20. The expatriates knew everything: from restaurants and shops, to which of the dusty antique shops selling celadon teapots and silver bracelets on Setthathirat Road had something else to sell behind their stores.

Vientiane combines the faded colonial charm of cities like Hanoi and Laoag with a dusty, frontier feel (leavened by the French patisseries). A peaceful riverside city with a few shops, banks and restaurants cut into the Mekong delta, it lacks the monuments and museums of most capitals.

Of the numerously elaborated temples around the city, Pha That Luang is the most elaborate. More than 500 kg of gold coat its four-sided tower. Known as the Great Sacred Stupa, this fine example of Khmer design was built in 1566 and plays host every November to the That Luang full-moon festival, when hundreds of orange-robed monks form a procession at dawn around the temple.

A few days of temple-hopping and evening strolls along the banks of the Mekong usually exhausts Vientiane's humble offerings, so many visitors move on to explore the capital's environs. The countryside north of Vientiane rapidly turns hilly, then mountainous. Head to Lao Pako, an eco-resort on the banks of the Nam Ngum River that has been run since 1995 by an Austrian owner. A variety of nature trails and river-rafting trips provide an outlet for those who feel the need to do something.

But most visitors, like myself, fall into step with Laos' rhythm and are satisfied to sit on the large veranda watching the sunset with my bare feet. I knew I had found the road less traveled. Visit the country now. Laos may not be Indochina's reclusive cousin for much longer.