Many things have changed in Laos since Lexi and I worked here between 1998 and 2000 and again since we visited in 2002. There are are loads more cars on the roads, as well as loads more tarmac on the roads too. The status symbol that is the four wheel drive, usually a Toyota double cab pick-up appears to be the aspirational must have and when combined with many motorbikes, mobile phones and winter dust all makes for interesting travel and for a newly invented phenomenon: the rush hour traffic jam.
Vientiane has definitely seen a building boom. There are now many more banks in along Lane Xang Avenue all of which are three or four stories high and there has been Lao's first shopping mall build in addition to the Talaat Sao Market. The arrival of the the ATM cash machine has brought the possibility of easy money and put pay to black market money changers. In a wonderful example of inter country co-operation the Vientiane branch of Maybank (Malaysia's most common bank) will not accept Malaysian bank cards. Vientiane has also seen a huge increase in the number of tourists, particularly the professional tourist, the sort of ethnic trouser, place name t-shirt, silly hair-do-wearing, Lonely Planet Guide Book clutching seeker outer of cold lager type.
In an attempt to make things simpler for the tourist, both professional tourist and the others most guest houses and hotels have started selling onward travel tickets and offering pick-ups, not the Toyota ones, to take their tourists to bus stations etc. Currently the prices that are charged are pretty much identical to local buses. However the tourist has to juggle the added convenience of being collected from its hotel with added inconvenience of the buses being late. We booked a bus from Vang Vieng to Vientiane on Sunday, through an agent near to our hotel and arrived for our 0930 pick-up ten minutes early. We were taken swiftly to the out of town Southern bus station (why does a small town like Vang Vieng need three bus stations?) to wait for our advertised 1000 departure, one of four buses that were scheduled to leave each day. Yes that's right a brand new bus station built for four departures per day. We clambered on and being a gang of five sat on the back row. Fine. More and more people got on until all the seats were taken and then some more got on. It appeared to be a complete surprise to the bus station manager that the bus was over-booked. When I had booked the tickets the night before the agent had simply taken my money and written out a ticket without checking if the bus was full. After loads of mobile phone calls we eventually set off at 1030, caught a Thai bus up that was going through Vientiane to Udon Thani and offloaded some passengers on to that one. Our bus arrived in Vientiane's Northern Bus Station, inconveniently 7 km out of the city centre which meant a tuk tuk journey into the centre, followed by another tuk tuk journey out to the Southern Bus Station, a further 9km away, for our bus to Pakxan. The Talaat Sao bus station in central Vientiane was always busy 15 years ago and needed expanding then. If the land behind Talaat Sao had been used for expansion it would have been possible to bring buses right into the centre. However some moneyed genius had decided to develop the newly vacant land into a shopping mall, to go with the virtually empty shopping mall adjacent to the Talaat Sao. Development is a rough and blunt instrument and does not always bring about progress.
Starting our journey to Pakxan from 9km out of the centre meant that many of the previous journey essentials had also been moved out of town too. At the newish station there were countless buses parked in a seemingly random order and lots of shouting announcing that they were about to leave. I found a Pakxan bus whose driver announced that, true to form he was about to leave in five minutes. However that was after I found another Pakxan bus with only one passenger on it. The conversation went thus (in Lao)
Me: Is this the Pakxan bus?
Her: Yes it is.
Me: Good. When is it leaving?
Her: (Blank look).
Me: What time is it leaving?
Her: (pause) Today.
Helpful.
The bus we did get left just over ten minutes after it was aiming to, pretty good time-keeping really, but driving out of the bus station was always a bit of a false dawn and continues to be so. On the way out many more things had to happen before we could get going properly. Before we left the compound the conductor had to shout to lots of people to tell them we were going to Pakxan, just in case there were any further passengers hiding. Next as we turned on to the main road we made our first scheduled stop, conveniently right outside the bus station, to see if any of the huge numbers of people waiting there wanted the bus. (Why do people wait OUTSIDE bus stations for buses?). After that it was a short hop to the bread shop for the driver and conductor to buy baguettes and then it was the open road, well apart from a stop to buy oranges, another to buy 21 litres of diesel and then a break for the conductor and driver to have pee and collect the fares. It was all just like the good old days.
More news about Pakxan to follow as we explore some more. However it too has been subjected to development. Its first set of traffic lights have arrived, a new market has appeared and the dodgy snooker club has gone. Also, sadly, the marvellous iced-coffee cafe has gone too. However our old house is still there, going strong, and next to it our former neighbours are still around. We have a slightly frightening lunch engagement with them on 1st at high noon. They were both big drinkers. On a social visit to Pakxan hospital this afternoon we found that the social life of the hospital was in full swing. From the outer edges we could hear two small parties celebrating the imminent arrival of 2014 in full swing. The party season is not a time to be ill or seek medical advice.
And then there is the thing that has not changed in 15 years. "Look It's A Foreigner. Say Hello." Parents still see it as one of their duties to train their off-spring from the earliest possible age to stare and point at foreigners. Several times today well-meaning Lao parents have stopped their toddlers from doing what ever they were about to do, turn them in the direction of one of us and say "Look It's A Foreigner. Say Hello." Of course now there is the added bonus of Trixie, a small blond girl, to add interest.