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Quickie Trip To Vientiane


radioman
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I’m cool with all of this. I didn’t go for pussy and indeed I got no pussy. I’m not the least bothered about when there’s so much elsewhere, the rest was a welcome break. But it’s a subject that’s near to my heart in many ways, I’m happy enough just to be around it. It was a curious experience as I found it, indeed I saw little even of the queens that Charly mentioned, plenty of horribly odd ladyboys but that’s not my thing either. My impression, albeit massively limited was that it quite possible to find company if that’s what you need. Mostly non Lao with plenty of Vietnamese, Cambodian and possibly others, I’m guesssing there are Chinese to be had also. In fact the overwhelming sense of the place to me was how China friendly, if not downright China-centric the place seemed. Well that and the odor, now it’s pretty clear the air is much cleaner than Bangkok, and the rural divide is much closer but I hadn’t quite expect the overhanging buffalo essence to be so obvious. Just another of the places charms I guess. And what’s not to like about a nicely turned out lass in a decent over the knee silk sarong, they do look yummy and they’re everywhere.

 

This was a trip of necessity but I’ll definitely go back, this time out of interest, and I’ll be more on the lookout for “optionsâ€! The tuk tuk boys I engaged in conversation all suggested Vientiane plaza, though of course it’s hard to know if that’s just their set up. Otherwise it’s just a nice place to chill for a few days and do the tourist thing. Oh and then there’s Beer Lao, on tap no less, who woulda thunk they’d make one of the regions best beers even better. The Thais are missing a trick not getting that on open sale here.

 

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Tuk Tuk boys have learnt off their Thai cousins, they're all scamsters, to a man. They've all got family in the police, just around the corner.

 

Nasiadai is correct about the laws regarding taking a girl to your room, the laws still exist. Though no one has been prosecuted in about 10 years or so. That being said, the law will still be raised, if one finds oneself in the unfortunate position of having to confront the police. A big instant fine will fix that.

 

But as far as I am aware, in the tourist areas, there are many blind eyes, to cohabitation that is not too flagrant and blatant.

 

There are numerous, late twenties, early thirties, 'good' girls who would dearly love, to encounter a foreigner of means, though that could end up in marriage...

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I haven't been there in nearly 10 years. It wasn't China-centric then. :(

 

But a few years the PRC more or less forced the PDR Laos to accept over 100,000 young single Chinese men as residents. The PRiCs are obviously planning to make Laos their own, and before long will no doubt be claiming it has really been theirs all along, just like Tibet and the "South China Sea". (Why isn't it the North Philippines Sea or the East Vietnamese Sea?")

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The native Lao, have a pretty dim view of the Viets who live there, since the '70s, but I think, that except for the Chinese Labourers, they view most Chinese as richer and therefore more desirable.

 

MLG, at one point was being wooed by a Chinese Software guy. But fate delivered her a Kiwi.

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The Pathet Lao military forces were a joke, just like the royalist forces. It was the North Vietnamese Army that seized power in 1975 and handed it over to the Pathet Lao, who promptly arrested the monarch and called for an election (mandatory vote) with just one candidate for each office. They then installed the "new government", which happened to be led by a half-Vietnamese commie who had been raised in Hanoi. But even in colonial days, the Froggies had brought in Vietnamese to hold many of the administrative positions. There is no love in Laos for the "Gae".

 

I worked with a Lao refugee (now a citizen of Oz) whose family fled early in the commie years, since they were a likely target because her school teacher father's older brother had been connected to the royal government. She told me she remembered seeing the NVA soldiers marching through her town on the way to seize the capital, each one of them with his bag of rice slung over his shoulder. Under the PL government, there was a new flag (the communist party banner) and a new anthem, but what struck her most was that the radio each morning broadcast the national anthem of Hanoi before the new commie anthem. She asked her father why they were playing another country's anthem. It was very clear from the beginning who was in charge.

 

p.s. Your Mrs got lucky. :)

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When I sat in Bor Phen Yang for a few beers the other night I offered to share my table on the balcony side with a Vietnamese couple. It was clear the girl wanted the view out over the river but that they were not going to find a free table. The guy didn't speak any English and hers was quite limited but he did speak Thai so we sort of got by in some light conversation. His story was that he had been in Laos for about 10 years, except for a 1 year spell in Poland (??) and an aborted trip to UK where he got arrested for trying to enter without a visa :) When I inquired as to the nature of his employ he replied after a quick google translate with pawn. So I'm guessing the guy owns, or works for, a pawn shop business. I don't think he meant he was in the porn business though that might have been a tad more exciting. The girl was, perhaps predictably, a lot more interesting. They seemed an odd couple and I'm guessing she was either forced on this guy or he was just 'introducing' her to places. She did say she had only been in Laos a week, which I found a bit odd unless she's in the guys recent employ. Still she was a cutie and I would have happily entertained her. I like Viet girls for short encounters they more often than not have nice bodies with very nice skin but I find their speech when speaking English though quite twee at first becomes a little grating over time. I always remember the little Vietnamese girl in Penang who convinced me she was good clean fun with her insistent "me no Ali Baba you!"

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Chinese have been at hard economic work in Loas for quite a while.

 

Many times recently when there with mates no issue taking a friend back. However about 15 years ago after a number of meetings and dates a mate took a girl back to our hotel and at 2am we was woken up and interagated on what the relationship was. My wife had to interview and suggest it was a permanent girlfriend.

 

Turns out in the morning the girl was a virgin and had never seen a razor blade.

 

They didn't get married.

 

A good Laos family friend campaigning against some of the excesses of the government and China disappeared.

 

It's not as nice as it once was.

 

To me the best time was 20-10 years ago when the river side was a dirt road and tiny bars overlooking the river.

 

There is a great series of books about a "Dr Siri" by Colin Cotterill.

 

Good books, better than the average Bangkok authors. Funny I can remember some of the characters based on real people and places now gone in Vientiane.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/series/49714-dr-siri-paiboun

 

 

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Colin Cotterill is quite readable.

 

I was in the old Wiengchan (fuck the Froggies and their garbled spelling) just months before the commie takeover. There was a coalition government at the time, and the Pathet Laos had a camp and marched armed patrols through the city (to show off their presence, I presume). They were nasty little fellows who wore Chinese style uniforms and never smiled at anyone. Wave at them and they might flip you the bird or throw stones at you. I saw a Brit tourist try to take a photo of their camp, and the guard locked and loaded his AK47 and pointed it straight at his chest. Everyone else was friendly though, except for one grumpy Viet shop owner I met who made sure you know he was from Hanoi and wanted none of that Saigon stuff. (His wife locked quite embarrassed by his rants.)

 

The nightlife was in a row of small shops that appeared to be restaurants. In fact, they were knocking shops that also served food. It cost the equivalent of 30 baht for ST. I remember one very cute girl who said she was from Nong Khai but that the business was better on the Laos side of the river. Most of the shops seemed to be run by Vietnamese mamasans, and you could tell that by the two photos invariably displayed on the wall ... one of King Sawang Wattana and the other of RVN Predisent Nguyen Van Thieu.

 

It was a sleepy little city back then, much more so than nowadays. Pedal samlors were the way to get around, but the commies soon ban them as "not fitting" the image of a nation's capital. For lunch, I liked a little restaurant run by a Frenchie, where you could order a Vietnamese meal and a glass of wine for not much money. There was also a semi-permanent community of western hippies who were they for the opium dens (4 baht for an opium pipe). Some of them told me they'd teach in Japan for 3 months a year to make enough to live the other 9 months in Wiengchan. Prices were cheaper than Thailand, plus the kip didn't come in such ridiculously large denomination. I think it was about 40 kip to the baht then, and you could have a nice meal for a few baht.

 

The small French population could almost never speak Lao, and they refused to speak English. But back then every Lao school kid studied French in school, so why should the French learn Lao?

 

Tastes seem to have changed. I remember the usual breakfast consisted of a baguette and a mug of Ovaltine. Last time I was there, I didn't see any Ovaltine. Now they drink coffee. Plus the war memorial is no longer in a traffic circle and has been renamed the Patu Xai, as if the commies had won a great victory. In fact, it was paid for with USAID money and was dedicated to the Lao dead of all wars. The Pathet Lao have done their share of rewriting history, making the monarch who founded the kingdom a great hero with a big statue, and conveniently overlooking the fact that they killed off the last royal family.

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p.s. In those days you had to get a visa before entering the kingdom. That meant a trip to the Royal Lao Embassy in Bangkok. The visa stamp was in Lao and French. As I recall, so was the form you had to fill out. I read the Lao, since my French was even worse 44 years ago.

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