Last updated 0100 hrs IST, Friday, May 18, 2001
ASIA FILE Tourists wake up to Laos Nearly a million tourists have visited Laos in two years, says Barun Roy There was a time when Laos was happily peddling its culture, its royal past, its temples, and its Buddhist monks filing out along the Mekong River at dawn, carrying alms bowls. But tourists weren't buying. Last December, it ended two years of a "Visit Laos" campaign that held out a different bait - its natural sights, deep mountain gorges, primeval rain forests, wooded valleys, and, of course, the river itself - and suddenly it worked. Nearly a million tourists are believed to have visited Laos in those two years, falling for the enchantment of what unquestionably is one of the most pristine ecological systems in all South-east Asia. The number may be small but isn't negligible, especially when India receives no more than 2.5 million visitors a year. In the Laotian context, it's a quantum leap from only 37,613 people who visited the country in 1991. And as the word goes around of Laos' immense unexplored attractions for the adventurous eco-tourist, the international travel industry seems to be waking up. At the Sixth Mekong Tourism Forum early last month in Kunming, the capital of China's Yunnan province, travel entrepreneurs warmed to Laos' potential within the greater Mekong sub-region, which received 14.1 million tourists in 2000. The Booker Group and Diethelm Travel announced the launch next November of a 14-day, 2,900-km cruise-stop-and-explore navigation by hovercraft down the Mekong River for international tourists. The expedition will take off from above Simao in Yunnan, where the river is known as the Lancang, and end at the river's mouth in Vietnam. Since Laos has the longest stretch of the river, about 1,000 km, among the six Mekong countries, it will figure prominently in the tour. More than two-thirds of this peaceful, almost mystical, country, once known as the Land of a Million Elephants, consists of mountain ranges, highlands, and plateaus. It's rich in animal life and in resident and migratory birds, including the rare green peafowl. It is also the home of the famous Mekong catfish that can weigh anything up to 250-300 kilograms. The fishing of this gentle giant continues to entail elaborate rituals. Of course, Laos won't take off easily. Its disadvantages are still too many. Long years of war have left many people wondering if the country is safe to travel through. Travel advisories aimed at Western tourists aren't usually favourable. "Visiting Laos may put your life at risk," one such advisory broadcast on the Internet bluntly warns. Many foreign embassies have declared Laos Aviation's ageing fleet of 17 Russian and Chinese-made planes unsafe. Until recently, there were few paved roads outside of Vientiane. Accommodation is still quite down-market, and telecommunications is confined mostly to some 86,000 basic telephone lines. But things have begun to change. Air and road links with neighbours are being expanded and upgraded. Next month, Mekong regional airlines will attend an international routes meeting in Europe to discuss interline agreements to serve the sub-region. With assistance from the Asian Development Bank, an east-west transport corridor is being developed to link Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam while another corridor, also passing through Laos, will link Chiang Mai, in Thailand, with Kunming. A second bridge across the Mekong is under construction to open up yet another friendship route with Thailand. Once all the connections are in place, Laos will be transformed from a landlocked to a land-linked country. The stage for this transformation was set in November 1999, when the transport ministers of Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam signed a landmark agreement to ease the flow of people and goods between the three countries. Thais already top visitor arrivals in Laos, and tours of Laos' jungles have become popular with the Vietnamese. But it is the high-spending tourists from the West that Laos is really waiting for, with its rapids, mountains, forests, and watersheds, and the ravishingly beautiful Plain of Jars, where it's always spring.
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