Peaceful Laos

Arriving just over the border in Laos, I was astounded to find that it is actually possible to be more laid back than Cambodia.

At the southern tip of the country the Mekong splits to form thousands of islands and sandbanks, creating a community largely protected from the march of time. This seems to have produced inhabitants who are even more relaxed than their neighbours. As the French aptly sum it up “the Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow... and the Laos listen to it grow”.

On a tour of the northern island of Don Khong, watching the sun set softly over the water from a traditional wooden fishing boat, it was easy to see why the place had a reputation in colonial times for turning French administrators native. The lucky fonctionnaires were known as ‘lotus eaters’, though lao-lao drinkers, after the ubiquitous local rice-wine, would be just as appropriate.

This does make for a long wait for an iced coffee (or for a scheduled bus), but it’s worth it – the setting of the lazily flowing river and lush, coconut-palmed islands really is idyllic. And – joy of joy – the thumping speakers of Cambodia are absent, including on the backpacker island of Don Det. Even the dogs are friendly.

My book of the moment, Norman Lewis’ occasionally brilliant and surprisingly timeless 1952 memoir A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, suggests that “Europeans who come here to live soon acquire a certain recognisable manner; they develop quiet voices, and gentle, rapt expressions”.

The gaggle of bearded American travellers on Don Det were sadly lacking in such attributes, but no matter – the place is just too chilled out to get worked up. Even our romantic sunset boat running out of fuel, or the shyster minivan driver dropping us at the wrong boat ferry to save a few kip – and the consequent 3km stroll in the sun – failed to wind me up here.

There must be some relationship between the environment and our mental state, and when you’re surrounded by clear, gently drifting water on all sides then good karma must be easier to find.

Not everyone sees this as a good thing though – a harsh (Western) assessment of the Laos psyche is of a people at worst lazy, or at least lacking in ambition. There did seem to be evidence of the idea that ‘too much work is bad for your brain’ and also sometimes ‘pity for those who think too much’. I’m not sure I’d relish the challenge of being a Peace Corps or VSO education volunteer here!

Of course, all this laid back atmosphere belies a recent history which is anything but peaceful. Sandwiched between Thailand to the west and Vietnam to the east, Laos has been a victim of regional power struggles for generations. During colonial times the British-influenced Thais pushed from one side and the French colonised Vietnam from the other.

The cold war only replaced the powers with Americans and Soviets (there are still hammer and sickle flags, alongside the Laos flag with its white circle representing the great white light of communism). And this was no minor skirmish: whilst the world fretted about the Vietnam war, a huge covert conflict was taking place over Laos. The United States Airforce – with pilots dressed in jeans and t-shirts it was so secret - doused the land with Agent Orange to clear the jungle (and poison the land and water for generations). They also dropped two million tonnes of bombs on Laos in the early 1970s. It’s not easy to visualise how much this is, suffice to say that it was around half a tonne for every single person living in Laos at the time – and that this makes it the most heavily bombed country. Ever.

Looking at it from that perspective the Laos people can hardly be blamed for enjoying their peaceful existence. And as I gazed out in search of freshwater dolphins or floated down the river in my tractor innertube, I couldn’t think that anyone would want this place to change.