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Laos stands at the crossroads of mainland Southeast Asia. Surrounded by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma, this small country has been both a bridge and buffer between neighbours who, in glory days, provided a field of territorial expansion by Lao kings. Yet more often than not Laos has been an arena in which more powerful neighbours and their allies have interfered. In the 1950s Laos, newly independent from France, set out to build a modern society but was soon engulfed by the Vietnam War, which brought with it invading North Vietnamese troops and high-flying US bombers that wreaked havoc. Few states could have survived the enormous pressure the Royal Lao Government came under in those years and, not surpris­ingly, it was finally crushed. The harsh communist regime that came to power in 1975 drove perhaps one-tenth of the population into exile. Just how this came about is part of the story that follows.

Visitors to Laos are usually charmed by the people's grace and good humour, and are consequently prone to romanticise the country. Lao also traffic in romantic images of themselves, but the idea of an ‘untouched’ Southeast Asian idyll has its flipside: Laos is one of the least developed countries in the world. Thus, successive Lao govern­ments have been committed to ‘development’, and millions upon millions of aid dollars have flowed into the country—too often straight into the pockets of its leaders, and too often creating a psychology of dependency. In the following pages I have tried to give some sense of the way Lao culture confronted and grappled with the dilemmas of social and political change. Unfortunately, the ‘untouchedness’ so beloved by tourists is often a consequence of failed development plans and enforced communist isolation for almost two decades. Young Lao today are impatient for real change.

This book is mainly intended for inquiring tourists, journalists, consultants, diplomats, businesspeople and students.