Laos – An Era Past

Most recently a Director of VanEck in New York, Tom Butcher has travelled extensively, particularly in South and Southeast Asia.

As it is now, back in the mid ‘80s, the Isan region of Thailand’s northeast was poor. But I loved it not only for the access it offered to the Mekong, but also for the proximity it offered to Laos and the tantalising glimpses you could get of the country (particularly Thakhek) from its banks. At the time, I often did risk/return calculations as to how much I might be fined and/or how long I might be incarcerated if I crossed the Mekong into the country illegally. I finally decided that it would just not be worth it: I would get in officially. It was not easy.

In response, perhaps, to Mrs Thatcher’s closure of the British embassy in Vientiane in 1985, Laos no longer had an embassy in London and the nearest was (quite naturally) in Paris. In addition, unless you were either a diplomat, with an NGO, or travelling in an officially recognised tour group (none of which left from the UK), getting a visa was nigh on impossible. It was, finally, only a letter from my friend at Cambridge, David Watkin, of the History of Art Department, that secured my Visa de Court Séjour.

As the First Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge was still years away and both Mekong River and land crossings (especially for foreigners) were prohibited, by air was the only way to get to Vientiane. The journey from Bangkok in a “trusty” Antonov AN-24 was a breeze (the Soviets kept the aeroplanes pretty well maintained, even if, sometimes, they were not that well piloted). Landing at Wattay International Airport (formerly Wattay Field – Lima Site 08 – and a US Air Operations Centre), I noted two things: first, the length of the runway (an historical legacy); and, second, the number of old bomb and shell craters around it.

A somewhat jaundiced Norman Lewis had opined some forty years prior in A Dragon Apparent that the attraction of Vientiane lay in the lives and customs of its people and that, unless you were interested in “pagoda architecture”, there was not much else to look at. I believe Mr Lewis probably short-changed the capital even then. Accepted, Vientiane was no Saigon and seemed to have remained very much as it always must have been, a quiet, sleepy town on the banks of the Mekong vying in importance only with the Thai provincial town, Nong Khai, over the river. I loved it.

Unlike Nong Khai, however, in Vientiane, although there were swarms of bicycles and quite a few mopeds, except for smart “party” and diplomatic cars, other cars were few and far between and nearly always falling to pieces. Perhaps this was why I counted fewer than five sets of traffic lights in the whole city.

Whilst once it was a recognised “recreational” destination in the ‘60s on the “hippy trail” from Kathmandu, through Chiang Mai and down to Bangkok, gone were the pizza, the opium dens and the brothels. Madame Lulu’s storied bordello had been long shut and was now a discotheque. Not long before I arrived, deeming it too suggestive, it had had its name changed from the “Feeling Well” to the “Lang Xang”. I was amused to hear, though, that some enterprising French working girls had recently tried to set up shop in town, only to be summarily dispatched back from whence they came.

Despite that, since the Berlin Wall had not yet fallen, Vientiane was, in its way, quite cosmopolitan, hosting all kinds of “experts” from fellow communist countries. These included Bulgarian and Polish farming/agrarian “experts”, Cuban doctors and medics, and even some East Germans. And, of course, the Soviets, who lived in their own compound out of the city. As one of the very few solo visitors to be allowed into the country at that time (and an English speaker to boot), I was often the object of suspicion and sometimes outright hostility. On one occasion, I was taken aside in the hotel lobby and grilled by a Bulgarian who wanted to know just why I was there.

In contrast, the local Lao could not have been friendlier. Indeed, in both Vientiane and Luang Prabang, I attended weddings for which I had received no prior invitation. In the capital, I had actually been pulled off the street as an “honoured” wedding guest: watered, fed and taught to dance the traditional “lamvong”.

The absence of “Westernisation” was particularly evident in matters of dress. For “every day”, most women in Vientiane wore the traditional “sinh”, a long, wrapped, silk skirt with a patterned border. And, at both weddings, the brides wore traditional dress and jewellery. In each instance, this consisted of a beautiful brocade skirt shot through with gold thread, a heavy silver belt, light delicate blouse and, diagonally across the shoulder, an embroidered sash. Each had their hair drawn up in a complex chignon, twisted into place on the top of their heads and kept secure by a surrounding beaded chain of rose gold.

Travel in the country was anything but easy. Not only was there a severe dearth of available four wheeled vehicles – there were plenty of bicycles and mopeds – but there were also severe restrictions on where you could go. Not least because the condition of so many of the roads was atrocious. Vientiane itself also had a cordon sanitaire.

In addition to the fact that Lao Aviation had so few aeroplanes, flying anywhere was also a bureaucratic nightmare. Success doing so involved myriad visits to “protocol” and permission being granted, not least, to: leave Vientiane, purchase an air ticket, travel to your destination, stay in your destination and, in some cases (as in Luang Prabang) move around once you got there.

Luang Prabang, the old royal capital, was either a 35-minute flight, or 12-hour bone-shattering drive, north of the capital. At that time, however, driving was not an option because of “activity” north of Vientiane: i.e. you could still get shot or blown up by various disaffected anti-government groups.

As I discovered, the aerodrome, with its “terminal” building still sporting the old royal Lao arms of three elephants topped by an umbrella, was not atypical of Luang Prabang itself. On the way in to town, I passed a fenced compound of yellow excavators, bulldozers and other heavy equipment. Donated by the US before 1975, I learned that, with no spare parts now available they sat there, useless, and rotted. If traffic was sparse in Vientiane, it was even more so in Luang Prabang.

Receiving few visitors (and never any foreign individuals like me), the city appeared untouched either by time or tourists. Just a little over a decade on, the old royal palace – large but by no means opulent – looked as if the royal family had only recently gone off on holiday. There were no cars to be seen, just bicycles, mopeds, lorries and a smattering of motorised rickshaws.

In town, because of the condition of the pavements, it was usually safer to walk down the middle of the town’s streets. But, at night, even that could be hazardous as there were few if any street lights, anywhere. Even on the main street through the town’s centre, there were only a couple of dim electric lamps down its whole length, with any other light coming from from oil lamps and candles. Most of the houses lining the street were, in essence, little stalls selling things like matches, cigarettes, biscuits, MSG, pens and sweets. At the end of the day, the families that also lived in them would congregate outside on chairs or stand around chatting while their children (of which there were many) played around them. Lining the curbs, too, were the food vendors selling the likes of noodles, rice cakes, satay sticks and bananas grilled over small fires.

Nearly forty years later, two sensory memories of the city remain strongly with me: its quietness and its smells. With little vehicular traffic, the quiet, even in the early evening with everybody out on the streets, was often impressed upon by little other than the sound of monks chanting in a wat, long river boats plying the Mekong, children playing and swimming in the river, people chatting and frogs croaking. Apart from these (and the ubiquitous tinny state Tannoy music broadcast in the morning and evening), it was preternaturally quiet. When it came to smells, with neither petrol nor diesel fumes, the air was redolent with the smell of drains, wood smokes of different sorts, food, cooking and the ever-present frangipani.

One comment and one conversation from my time in Luang Prabang struck me then (and still do) as illustrative of how things were in Laos at the time. The city is dominated by the cone of Phousi hill, atop which sits the golden stupa of That Chomsi. On the hill, overlooking the royal palace and the Mekong, there was a large bronze bell. Formerly, this was rung at least three times a day (watches were not common): to wake people in the morning, to announce it was lunch time and to signal the end of the working day. Ringing it himself now, my 67-year-old guide explained that it had also been rung in “normal” times to tell people that all was well. In addition to being my guide, I learned that he was also the curator of the royal palace and had, before 1975, been the government minister in charge of the country’s census.

Later that day, chatting with a Scandinavian engineer (working with his country’s aid mission to Laos) at the hotel, he talked in detail about always being watched, having his rooms searched, constantly having to produce his papers and often having “minders” foisted upon him. We also discussed the regime’s paranoia about, and fear of, “westernisation” and the fact that the Lao were prohibited both from speaking with foreigners (as we were with them) and inviting them into their homes. They were also prohibited from going into the hotels in which foreigners stayed and, if they did (and were caught), they were liable not only to be punished, but also ostracised by their friends, neighbours, etc.

As the sole occidental visitor in Luang Prabang, there was really no reason for state security to have me followed: having to report my every move and nearly always being accompanied was deemed enough. In Vientiane, however, it was another matter and I was constantly being watched. That said, though, my tails were really not that professional.

At that time, entering the country with the requisite visa was a breeze. I wasn’t even asked the length of my court séjour. Surprisingly, though, leaving the country was less of one. Having checked in, I was escorted by state security to a small office off the main “concourse”. I was, then, provided verbally (in French) with a step-by-step description of my visit to the country, together with all the things I had done wrong – amongst many others, I had spoken, and shared drinks and meals, with the locals, gone to their homes, ridden on their motorcycles and bicycles, and often not kept the authorities informed of where I was going and what I was doing. However, I was informed, I had been sympatique culturally, demonstrating respect for both the country’s history and its peoples’ customs. And, should I wish to return, I could … but I just had to watch my step.

Finally, I had my luggage thoroughly and painstakingly searched. When I enquired as to why, I was told that, only the previous week, some members of a French “cultural” tour group (who had been visiting Luang Prabang) had been caught trying to smuggle out of the country some statues of the Buddha that they had stolen from the Pak Ou Caves in which the figures rested. Flying back over the Mekong, I remember my thoughts were that the Lao authorities should, perhaps, be more worried about unscrupulous, wealthier visitors in groups than probably less well-off individual visitors to the country.

*the title image shows sunset over the Mekong at Luang Prabang.

© 2025 Tom Butcher

The opinions expressed are those of the contributor, not necessarily of the RSAA.