The French Legacy

When the French pulled out of Laos they generously gave the Laotians a sum of money - reportedly to build an airport. In their haste to recognise the French importance in Indo China the Laotian government decided to build a reminder of the French - their own version of The Arch d'Triomphe! It was built primarily in 1962, and after walking up to it and into the covered area, I was pleased to note that the Laotians themselves consider it an ugly structure. It is a lump of concrete - the first dumping on Laos by the US government. Just so I could say I walked up it (just like in France), we entered and climbed the stairs - to be greeted by the ususal comercial enterprises of varying tackiness...then the power failed and we were in the dark clutching our bags close to our chests (pickpockets are a problem here). It passed quickly and we continued to move up the stairs. The view of the "Champs Elysee" was broad - and nothing more.

Next is the view over the "community" area where people dance and listen to REALLY loud and terrible music. The fountain in the middle is rather nice - a donation from teh Chinese govt., built that.

 We also thought the wiring for electricity and telephones etc...was
an interesting part of the landscape.

 

Having said all of that, the French influence in architecture of housing is huge and there are hundreds of old houses around. They are lovely. Once you start walking around in the back streets, up and down and away from the river,  the areas are lovely - but oh so quiet and laid back. All the streets have 2 names - one French and one Laotian, kinda cute.It actually seems that almost everyone speaks French and Lao - especially the older generation plus lots is written in French. English is limited here as well - that proves to be quite funny when trying to communicate. I assumed the level of English here would be similar to Cambodia - but not at all, in fact it is not a patch on Cambodia (where English is seen as the tool to alleviate poverty).

We were told about this amazing cafe at the end of a laneway - bit of an interesting place...but we followed the directions and came to a less than desirable looking laneway, which smelt considerably of everything a whole lot less than desirable. Christina (shown) was sceptical about the adventure, but we got there - at the end of that laneway behind Christina and had a fabulous coffee... Just goes to show "dont judge a book by its cover"