Vientiane: The Human Angle

For a while, Nita was my favorite guesthouse while in Vientiane. It had a superb location and offered extraordinarily pleasant rooms, with huge windows, plenty of air and light. However, it had a dark, hidden side as well.

Location

Located in a corner structure on Saylom Road, Nita is near the Morning Market and at walking distance from the bus terminal, the Mekong River promenade and most of downtown attractions.

Structure

The guesthouse is placed within a beautiful three-story building which originally was a traditional teakwood house. It has been re-modeled and now features several rooms with bathrooms attached. The rooms have big windows and pleasant balconies attached to the fire stairs; the last seemed to be a good idea at first sight.

Price

A basic room costs five dollars per night, a double one costs eleven; additional services include television and internet in the lobby.

The Burglary

In my last morning there, I left early for a coffee at the nearby Morning Market. Halfway to there, I remembered to have left behind the empty CD's I needed for burning my last batch of pictures.

I returned to the guesthouse and found a strange sight at the lobby. A westerner was sitting at the lobby, intently watching the door; he took a look at me, picked up a cellular phone and quietly said something into it. That piece of equipment was highly unusual in Laos; most tourists here are seeking for peace of mind and not for ways of quickly reaching their brokers.

Before I could completely analyze the sight, I found myself running up to the third floor with all my strength. Breathless, I entered the room and found the wide window leading to the fire stairs open. My belongings were scattered all around.

A thorough check showed me I arrived before the thieves managed to cause any arm. The receptionist claimed no knowledge of the event; she claimed the foreigner at the lobby was unknown to her. In any case by the time I returned to the lobby he was already gone and there was nothing I could do.

I have no way of knowing if the thieves were working independently or have coordinated the event with the receptionist; what was pretty clear was that the attractive setup of the place was being used for their dark plans. I never returned there and learned a new way of analyzing hotel rooms' attractiveness.

I have never seen so many sudden changes in immigration’s policies as in Laos. From a surprisingly warm welcome just after the last time it reopened its gates, to icy looks after a three-fold increase in the visa fees.

After having crossed all the Laotian entry points (including the semi-legal one to Cambodia, see my Planning Cambodiajournal) I never know what to expect even while returning to a well known cross point as the Friendship Bridge near Vientiane.

The Bus

Crossing the bridge over the Mekong River by foot is not allowed; there is a minibus spanning it every few minutes. Since Thais drive on the left side and Laotians on the right one, the experience is quite interesting. Once I spoke with a Thai immigrations officer, I asked why I cannot cross by foot.

"Maybe you jump Mekong," he said.

I pointed out that it is possible to jump into the river from many other open places and that in any case I would just break a fingernail at the worst case.

"You can’t," he summarized.

It was early in the morning and I had time, hence I continued:

"Why do you double the crossing tariff on weekends?"

I showed the Thai stamps in my passport while explaining I hadn’t seen anything similar on the other crosses.

Instead of answering, he said "No problem," and instructed the bus tickets’ seller to charge me the regular tariff. He didn’t get the message; the problem wasn’t the irrelevant fee but the unjust system.

The Laotian Fee

While entering Laos, the Laotian immigrations were even less consistent regarding the entrance fee. Sometimes it wasn’t existent while others a dime or a quarter were requested. Sometimes only local kips were accepted while others dollars and baht were welcomed. Once I paid with 100 kip notes left from my former entry; they were accepted and shortly afterwards I discovered they have been taken out of circulation the previous month. In other occasion I paid with a handsomely new 5000 kip note and met icy looks – that time they wanted only foreign currency.

The Language

Laotian immigration personnel speak English, but only at a basic level; speaking with them in may lead to lengthy encounters.

The List

As in many other places, Laotian authorities keep track of the hotels in which tourists spend their time; that’s why identification papers are requested even if the bill is paid beforehand. Immigration officers expect to see a complete list of the hotels visited before stamping a passport off.

On certain occasion, the officer asked me regarding a couple of nights; apparently the hotel clerk forgot to file me in or committed an error with my name and his computer couldn’t find me.

"I don’t remember," I said.

"I must write down the hotel you were in," the officer insisted.

Trying to protect a careless clerk, I gave the name of a random hotel. The officer stamped the passport and let me go; a lesson was learned.

Laotian kindness is legendary; it was obvious almost from first sight, but two specific events I experienced showed it to run deeper than suspected.

While visiting Vientiane for the first time, I discovered the excellent Laotian coffee at the Morning Market (see my "Vientiane: Love from First Sip" journal). Not speaking Laotian, I used my usual tactic in such a case. I pointed at a cup of coffee to the stall’s owner and sat next to a customer who was about to finish his. While sipping my coffee, I noted he paid 1500 kip for it (around 15 cents). I finished mine while wondering about the best coffee in the world being one of the cheapest, picked up the same amount of kips and handed them to the owner with a smile. She looked at the money and I could sense something was wrong, but before I managed to react she smiled and put it away.

The ritual continued the following mornings. Then, I casually visited a different stall in another part of the market and was requested to pay 2000 kip for the same coffee. Wandering about that, next day I returned to my usual stall and watched the other customers; all of them paid 2000 kip.

Apparently, on my first day I had watched an old patron of the place who enjoyed an old price or a discount. This time I paid 2000 kip and signalled I wasn’t expecting any change; I got a big smile. Attempting to fix the damage without causing her to "loose face," the following days I increased my coffee consumption (an extra benefit) while making clear I expected to get the complimentary green tea only with the last one. I had gained a friend.

Another event was even more surprising.

I like to write while sitting at hotel lobbies; the ever changing surroundings provide the right kind of stimulation needed for creative work. On certain occasion, I was trying to write in my favourite hangout while a troubled tourist kept bothering me.

"I lost my baseball cap," he said apparently to no one for the third time that day.

By then I already knew all the details. The cap was a gift from his ex-girlfriend. She abandoned him and he decided to visit the East in an attempt to forget her. The day before we met, he had arrived to Vientiane from Thailand through the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River and took a tuk-tuk (motorized tricycle) to the capital. His cap was apparently lost in the terminal or in the way to the hotel.

In a spark of creativity, I found a solution to my most immediate problem.

"Why don’t you go back to the terminal and search for it?" I said.

Soon he was gone and I returned happily to my writing. Ten minutes later he returned. A cheap baseball cap was on his head.

"The driver kept it for me!" he told me with a huge smile.


Laotian kindness was as reliable as the scorching sun over the Mekong River.

Due to my childhood’s negative experiences at a communist community (a kibbutz in Israel which resulted in my conversion to Christianity) I have always been intrigued by other such societies. Not many communist regimes are left nowadays; nonetheless I managed to visit three of them in Asia. Laos was one of them; China and Vietnam were the others. All of them quickly convinced me of being oppressive societies where human rights are violated on a daily basis.

The situation is so bad that even innocent websites (like the CNN’s one that hardly can be considered to be a deep or serious source of information) are often censured and inaccessible. Recently, the Chinese even began using an automated web-police program which actively interacts with Chinese surfers through an electronic cartoon of a policeman. In all these three countries I experienced censorship at different levels.

Yet, visiting them is an important experience. Beyond the obvious glimpse into these fascinating cultures and the direct meeting with the extraordinarily good and kind people living there, the visits provide a golden opportunity to learn the importance of human rights and freedom of speech.

Another fascinating angle of such a visit is the opportunity the study the place of Buddhism within those societies. The interaction between this godless ideology and Buddhism is complex; for many years, Buddhism was heavily oppressed but in the last decade it is flourishing in Laos with the obvious blessing of the Marxist regime. The situation with other religions is different; I actually visited an underground church which was not allowed to operate openly.

Since Laotians do not enjoy political freedom, I could not openly ask these questions. Yet, over time I held several conversations – at least one with a Laotian Communist Party member – and an interesting picture emerged.

Once the Soviet Union collapsed, the local regime was left without convincing history and myths able to unify the people. A visible testimony of that are the several gaps in the National Museum; uncomfortable events are ignored there. Fearing the future, the Laotian government decided encouraging Buddhism as a way of reinforcing the national identity and unity, and not because it suddenly ceased being atheist.

Jesus message of peace and love is not essentially different from Buddha’s preaching; Heaven and Nirvana are compatible, despite the essential differences on the perceptions of God and soul. Why exists a different attitude toward them by an openly atheist regime? Buddhism is not completely parallel to Christianity; the Christian ideal of justice is almost non-existent there. The Buddhist quasi-parallel would be the "puja" ("merit" in Sanskrit), which is a much weaker principle. The result is more attractive and less threatening for regimes that regularly violate human rights.

I witnessed the Big Stupa Festival in Vientiane; the traditional Buddhist event was being sponsored by the communist regime. In an attempt to diminish the awkwardness of the event, a big market was improvised around the stupa and disguised the religious core of the event. At first sight, the endless rows of stalls featuring unusual and colourful attractions seemed to be the principal event. Ignoring the crowds, I entered the big stupa inner complex and studied the event. Before my arrival I had studied about the event and witnessed many Buddhist ceremonies across Asia, thus I knew what to expect.

Yet, I found the event highly touching. It was so not due to the symbols behind the celebration but because of the people. The hesitating crowds were unsure of the details; many were asking how to proceed or just followed their neighbours. It was a crowd attempting a renewal of an old tradition which was banned for years; a crowd holding candles which symbolized a hesitant re-birth. They were tentative and unsure, but they had a clear will to improve and learn. Their fervour was the best testimony of true feelings muted by a prohibiting regime and held the promise of a better future; a future in which Nirvana, Peace, Love and Justice would be the natural reality.

Landlocked Laos offers the visitor a colourful and intriguing mosaic of facts, myths, fears and hopes which reflects its unique reality.

Until the recent Communist Revolution, it is not possible to talk about a Laotian country, nation or even people. For most of their recorded history, the modern Laotian territory was divided among three principalities , to some degree vassals of the various Thai kingdoms . The people's culture was basically Thai and similar to the one of Isaan, in Thailand's northeast. The Lao dialect is indistinguishable from the Thai dialect spoken there, despite the slightly different letters used. Even Laotian clothes are identical to the Thai, except for the colours since Laotian people like black coloured fabrics. Both cultures prefer settlements nearby rivers and both accepted the Buddhism brought from Sri Lanka.

Other principalities existed within the Thai small empire - Chiang Rai and Nan are well known examples of those - but they never broke apart the way the Laotian ones did; that was the result of events in the late nineteenth century. In one of the twists of colonial times, mountainous Laos became a natural barrier between French Indochina (Vietnam) and British Burma (Myanmar). In a complex move, the French forced the Thai to cede Laos in exchange for other territories and favours.

Nevertheless, Laos was never considered important by the French; it was just a barrier, an expendable security line. Yet, despite holding there nothing more than a symbolic presence there, the French changed the local culture just enough to create a tangible separation from the Thai one. Having coffee and baguettes for breakfast is the most obvious and superficial testimony of that.

Years later, the Laotians found themselves again involved in international intrigues and conflicts. The French violated a popular referendum in Vietnam, a war broke there, and the Americans got involved into an unwanted and unnecessary war. Ho Chi Minh's Trail - a military supply line connecting Northern Vietnam with the South, crossed parts of Laos and resulted in the last being bombed by the Americans. Calculating the tonnes of bombes dropped per Laotian head, Laos became the worst bombed country in the history of the world, despite the fact it never threatened the USA. The heavy marks of the deforestation caused by Agent Orange can be clearly seen more than thirty years after the war's end.

Once the war was over, a Communist Revolution took place and defined the local regime since then. A Laotian regime - which was never put to the test of free elections - found itself ruling an independent country for the first time and discovered new and worrying threats.

The first was on the north: China. The Laotian culture (as the Thai one) has its roots in Yunnan, Southern China. The Chinese could use the same logic and rhetoric applied with Tibet and claim that Laos was historically a part of China and its culture. The same fears plagued another country: Mongolia. The result was the tightening of the links between these two countries. Both countries hoped that open and extensive relations would nullify any Chinese claim that they weren't independent countries, but vassal Chinese states. The approach seems to have worked, at least as of late 2007. There is no better testimony of that than the surprisingly huge complex of the Mongolian embassy in Vientiane.

Another danger was on the west. Thailand could claim Laos was an indivisible part of its culture and territory; once the French left it should be reincorporated into the modern Thai state. The Laotian response in this front was to increase the cultural differences between the two. Ironically, that was achieved by emphasizing the colonial past. Nowhere is that more evident than in Vientiane's French architecture. A subtler tactic was applied by keeping the French transliteration of Laotian names into Roman letters. Vientiane would be better transliterated as Viang Chan - I gave other examples in other articles about specific monuments in Vientiane - but Laotian authorities stick to those versions despite their political implications. Thai names are usually written using a quasi-English phonetic system.

The third danger was on the East. Vietnam influenced twice Laotian history and has the potential of doing that again, especially due to geopolitical considerations. Part of the Laotian territory is across the Annamite Mountains and thus geographically closer to Vietnam than to central Laos. Moreover, the very important overland commerce route between Thailand and Vietnam passes through Laos creating thus a vital interest of Vietnam to keep the stability of the Laotian Communist regime. The heavy (official and unofficial) Vietnamese presence in Vietnam is a subtle reminder of this reality. Again, Laos found itself in the role of a barrier between foreign countries and a victim of international geopolitics. The stability of the regime - at least while Vietnam stays Communist - is the best assurance of peace on this front.

Discovering and witnessing this fascinating kaleidoscope is one of the additional and unexpected benefits of visiting Vientiane. Nowhere else the complexity of south East Asian politics is so palpable and evident; even in an innocent French filtered coffee at Vientiane's Morning Market.