Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang is my favorite place on the trip so far; an extremely chill small town with a rich history and friendly people. There really aren’t any must-see sights; the temples are small, not well preserved, and not particularly engaging while the elephants, rivers, and caves are all surpassed by similar attractions in Vietnam or Thailand. Instead the attraction is just walking around town and enjoying the gestalt of the place. The lack of must-see attractions is actually relaxing per se since there’s no implicit obligation to spend the day sweating, burning, and swatting at insects to avoid the guilt of blowing off an attraction. The appeal of Luang Prabang is tough to express in writing but it comes down to really friendly people, a lower level of touting than Bangkok or the tourist trail in Vietnam, and enough amenities to be very comfortable without over-the-top conspicuous consumption that you’d find a 5 star hotels in Asian cities. More than a few foreigners have moved to Luang Prabang to set up western-style restaurants, giving you the option of enjoying bargain priced local food or escaping to a Starbucks-like enclave of cold A/C, recreated French colonial décor, and $4 coffees. The town wasn’t just a hit with us; accessible poverty + good hotels and restaurants = the highest concentration of new white Land Cruisers we’ve seen anywhere. These expensive fuel- and resource-sucking SUVs are the vehicle of choice for foreign donor agencies when assisting the locals with sustainable growth and development.
Although Luang Prabang’s rich tourism industry and status as a UNESCO world heritage site makes it far from the poorest place in Lao it was still clear off the bat that Lao is about the poorest place I’ve been (next contender? Maybe Sapa, Vietnam); the World Bank estimates that in 2004 71% of the population lived on less than $2 per day. Anywhere beyond the tourist center of old city the norm is no electricity, no shoes, no running water, and only a few years of school before dropping out to work. Family sizes are large and a majority of farmers are growing for subsistence rather than because it makes any kind of economic sense.
The obstacles to economic development Lao are reminiscent of sub-saharan Africa. The population lacks critical mass (only 6 million) and is isolated in low density rural towns, unconnected by roads or decent communication infrastructure. As far as replicating the export-led “Asian economic miracle” that has driven prosperity in the rest of the region, Lao is landlocked by four countries with their own underemployment problems amongst the rural poor, making exports difficult. Lao’s basic infrastructure and education are very poor; it’s hard to see why anyone would invest in Lao when its neighbors offer similar opportunities with lesser hurdles. Tourism, while not the only driver of growth, is a significant earner and would likely lose its draw if the country was no longer poor and somewhat backwards (i.e., it would be a victim of its own success).
On a tangent, Lao is kind of a worst case scenario for the impact of indiscriminate greenhouse gas controls as virtually any development will require deforestation for roads, farming, mining, or an industrialized timber industry. Any growth in these areas or even overall wealth levels will create new emissions from transportation fuels, air conditioning, computers, and other things people around the world crave once they have satisfied their basic needs for food and shelter.
I loved Luang Prabang, especially when paired with the urban frenzy of Saigon or Bangkok. While I expect it will not change as fast as Vietnam or Thailand I’d still urge anyone coming to this part of the world to tack on a visit to Luang Prabang before all the charm is gone.
