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By Rolf Potts

July 9, 1999 | When explorer Francis Garnier arrived in Vientiane in 1866, he was amazed by the extent to which the city, which had been pillaged and razed by the Thais just a few decades earlier, had already reverted to jungle. He wrote, "The absolute silence which reigned in the enclosure of a city that formerly was so populous and so wealthy astonished us."

One hundred thirty-three years later, the silence that astonished Garnier has not entirely gone. Walking through the Lao capital, one gets the feeling that if the government one day decided to relocate the entire population to Coconut Grove, Fla., Vientiane would revert to dust and vines in a matter of weeks. In no other Asian capital is a traveler more likely to share a sidewalk with a water buffalo, fall into an open sewer within view of the Presidential Palace or get a quiet night's sleep.

But while I was in the drowsy Laotian capital, I once again encountered a set of obstacles that halted my progress and threw my Mekong travels into uncertainty.

By far the biggest obstacle was that, for various reasons, Robert and Chris had to leave Laos and Vientiane was the ideal place to do that. This posed a grave problem for me, since we had yet to navigate the dreaded Khemmarat rapids below Savannakhet -- and I knew just enough about driving the Mik Sip to kill myself and everyone onboard in a very inefficient and undignified manner.

Each night during our Vientiane layover, I would meet with Robert and Chris over dinner to propose and discuss different options for extending our Mekong travels. As is perhaps natural with people who have been living on a boat, we were so taken with the novelty of civilization that we really didn't care which civilization it was. On various nights, we convened for Pizza Reine at La Provençal restaurant, mint curry and lassi at the Taj restaurant and bacon double-cheeseburgers at a place called Uncle Fred's Country Chicken.

In the daytime, I cruised the city for 30 cents a day on a decrepit, undersized, one-speed "Hare Sport" -- the kind of bicycle a person rents from his guesthouse only when there are no options. I spent hours rattling my way over Vientiane's dusty, rock-strewn streets.

Everything in Vientiane, it seems, is either under construction or falling apart. When I first arrived, I was pleased to discover that my visit coincided with the Tet holiday; unfortunately, the celebration was hampered by the fact that all the streets in Chinatown had been torn out for repaving. I visited the monstrous concrete Victory Arch (nicknamed the "Vertical Runway" because it was built with cement donated by the United States in 1969 for airport construction), only to find it partially closed off because the upper viewing decks -- which from the inside resembled a condemned YMCA handball court -- were beginning to crumble.

By far the liveliest place in Vientiane was the morning market, where amid crowded stalls offering Lao weavings, gold jewelry, Ray-Bans, shampoo, fake Nike apparel and Vietnamese sugar cookies, scores of middle-aged ladies prowled the aisles with bags full of Lao currency, accosting foreigners and offering to exchange for dollars at 50 percent better than the bank rate. When I asked one lady if she accepted traveler's checks, she said, "Yes, but only if you write down the same name as the one on the check." Needless to say, she didn't ask for my passport.

By contrast, the women working at the government bookstore on Setthathirath Avenue were literally asleep behind the counter when I arrived, and seemed confused when I wanted to buy something. Communist-themed comic books lined the bookstore's back wall, and copies of the hopelessly non-controversial Vientiane Times (sample front-page headline: "Non-aligned movement adopts stance on global issues") sat stacked by the front door. On the glassed-in display shelves -- just across from the Marx, Lenin and Kaysone Phomivane posters -- sat new English-language titles like "Markets and Development" and "Entrepreneurship": evidence that the current leaders of Laos are beginning to allow the inevitable.

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Historically, Lao leaders have had a knack for acting more out of impulse or bravado than calculated common sense. In 1550, for instance, King Potisararat was crushed to death while attempting to impress a group of visiting ambassadors with his elephant-lassoing skills. In 1817, a pagan priest named Ai-Sa briefly seized the southern royal palace at Champassak through his fearsome power to create fire; when it was later discovered that he'd merely been using a magnifying glass, he was run out of town.

But perhaps the most well-known story of Lao derring-do dates back to 1478, when the governor of Kenetha captured a rare white elephant and gave it to King Chaiya. Impressed by news of this rare find, the emperor of Vietnam dispatched a delegation to ask for a few tail hairs from the sacred beast. The Lao king's son, who didn't care much for the Vietnamese, sent the delegates home with a box full of the elephant's feces. War ensued. Luang Prabang was sacked.

By comparison, today's communist leadership, with its gradual concessions to tourism and open markets, seems downright dull. But perhaps this is because, after a few hundred years of being dominated by the interests of either Thailand, China, France, the United States or Vietnam, the leaders of Laos want to choose a more deliberate, self-determined path for their country.

Efforts at development in Laos have been slow at best. Construction is set to begin this summer on a nine-mile railroad link to Vientiane from Nong Khai, Thailand. Once this project is completed, Laos will have increased its total number of rail miles built this century to a whopping 12. Also on the docket this year is the expansion of Dansavanh Resort and Casino north of Vientiane. According to a somewhat telling Bangkok Post interview with resort developers, attractions at the Dansavanh will include parasailing, karaoke and "not getting malaria."

Not surprisingly, the Mekong and its tributaries are the biggest weapons in Laos' economic arsenal. According to "What and How to do Business in the Lao PDR" (one of my purchases from the sleepy ladies at the government bookstore), the biggest development potential in Laos lies in hydroelectricity. River-generated electricity is already Laos' No. 1 export; sources estimate that the Lao Mekong basin could one day generate electricity equivalent to the energy in 1 million barrels of oil a day. Optimists have nicknamed Laos the "hydroelectric Kuwait" of southeast Asia, an ironic moniker for a country where most villages don't have electric power and old-fashioned flame-torches are still sold in the markets of the capital. To date, no dams (and only one bridge) have been built on the Laotian Mekong itself, but plans to construct a reservoir 12 miles upriver from Vientiane have been on the table since the 1960s.

If constructed, this dam would alter the commerce, agriculture and ecology of the Mekong in a manner unparalleled in its history.

Next page | The voyage resumes: Rousted by soldiers, rollicking at a village Buddhist fest