Rapid change in Southern Laos

Tad Lo Lodge, Bolaven Plateau, Laos – Sometimes it’s important to smile. It’s often so simple; you draw a conclusion, state an opinion, and then get exposed…

Minutes after I published our latest blog on Central Laos, we finished lunch in a rather nice coffee house/cafe in Pakse. Our guide had called ahead as the last time he visited, there were no tables available. So he made a reservation. We arrived to a surprise – a wonderfully quiet cafe, and a mis-understanding… “reservation” was taken to mean “please prepare us a special Lao meal to be ready for our arrival”. Travelling is full of these moments, and often all you can do is smile… it was a WONDERFUL lunch!

So we left Pakse, with a new guide & a new vehicle, to begin our journey into Southern Laos. I’d grandly stated in our last blog that Lao driving was “co-operative”… the road to Paksong was kinder (read “less potholes”, no “Dancing”), but conversely it was a road with a purpose, one of the trade routes to Vietnam: speed was higher, “rights” were important, horns were sounded “helpfully”. We drove through a rich land of market gardens, including coffee plantations that clearly generated a higher economic output than we’d previously experienced in Laos. It wasn’t long before we happened upon our first accident…

So a question: Does a richer, faster, more economically beneficial life have to change a culture… or maybe we were just mourning the loss of the “Dancing Road”?

To clarify… we were travelling in a car!