We recently visited Laos, and early betting, based on our guidebook descriptions, was that it would be like Indonesia. We went to Indonesia more than 15 years ago; it was our first big trip to Asia. It may not be this way now, but when we visited, Indonesia was very undeveloped. Our guesthouses rarely had running water or flush toilets; bus schedules were nonexistent and departure times were set whenever a vehicle filled up. Within about an hour of our arrival, I had concluded that Indonesia was "just like Nigeria."

Now Nigeria happened to be the only real foreign country I had ever traveled to up until that point. The fact that I did this before Deb and I met, and the fact that on the surface, Indonesia and Nigeria had *nothing* in common, made Deb quite skeptical of my decision. But what I was reacting to was the unforgettable mix of diesel fuel, rotting garbage and raw sewage that makes up the smell of every third world city, as well as the lack of even the most basic signs of infrastructure. Cities without sidewalks, streetlights, or traffic control have a lot in common even when they are on different continents. Many years later, when we arrived in a gray and wintery China, the smell of burning coal and the abundance of dreary, characterless cement buildings made Deb think immediately of Czechoslovakia.

We started our trip to Laos in the capital, Vientiane. Laos is a very small country; between 4 and 5 million people; nobody is totally sure. The entire population could easily fit into the average Chinese city. So we were not expecting the capital to look like Beijing, or Washington DC. Maybe something more like Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, another former French colony. We were however, expecting to see some traffic in the streets and some people in the markets. And we didn't expect to be sharing the road with quite so many chickens and pigs. On first impression, Vientiane makes Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia, look absolutely cosmopolitan.

The biggest surprise was that on our initial afternoon in Vientiane, we saw more Western tourists than we saw Laotians! Now, I don't know about you, but in my mind, Laos is a bit off the beaten track. We know lots of people who travel like we do and very few of them have been to Laos. Where did all these people come from? The Laotians had certainly figured out where their bread was buttered because every other shop was selling either souvenirs and postcards, or making fruit shakes and banana pancakes, the archetypal backpacker's food.

But it wasn't just backpackers. We saw lots of older tourist couples as well. As the years go by Deb and I increasingly find that the people we meet traveling are decades younger than us. But in Vientiane, there were more people in their 50's and 60's than in their 20's and 30's. We began to suspect that at least some of them were working for NGOs ("Non Government Organizations," i.e. non-profit charity and aid groups.) They had a clean-cut, Midwestern air about them, with their short-sleeve dress shirts and khaki pants. But there were still plenty of couples that looked like retirees cruising the shopping mall, with belly-bags and cameras, dressed in the modified colonial-era safari outfits that seem to be forever associated with "adventure travel."

We were having a hard time getting a grip on this. It wasn't shaping up like Indonesia at all. The guesthouses were clean and spacious, with hot showers and flush toilets, the buses, while crowded, left on schedule and on time. The city, while largely unpopulated by any native residents, was clean and orderly. No garbage, no sewer smells.

Our plan in Laos was to work our way north from the capital by bus and then cross the border into China to visit southern Yunnan province. Our first stop after Vientiane was a tiny place called Vang Vieng. It's major distinction is that it is as far as you can go from Vientiane on a municipal bus. It's only 100 miles away, but the roads are bad and the trip takes about 3 hours. About three quarters of the passengers on the bus were Laotian, giving me some reason to believe that we would now be heading into the "real" Laos.

Guess again. Vang Vieng was a tourism boom-town. You could practically smell the money (but not the garbage) being made with all the spanking new guesthouses, restaurants, and cafes catering to travelers. Then there were the bike rental shops, and tour companies supplying inner tubes for floating down the wide, placid, river that runs through town. There were many more young travelers, and Vang Vieng was clearly developing as a hangout scene. Knit caps, shaved heads, dreadlocks, piercings and tattoos all pointed to the same inevitable conclusion. Signs appeared in not only English, but French, German and even Hebrew.

We kept heading north, still looking for the heart of Laos. Luang Prabang, our next stop, may have been it. It was by far the most beautiful city we saw in Laos, and really the only place that felt like a city at all. I don't know enough about the history and politics of Laos to say this with certainty, but I have the impression that in some sense, Luang Prabang is the capital of the country, not Vientiane. During the colonial era, what is now Laos was part of the larger French Indochine region that included Vietnam and Cambodia. There were many administrative regions and many local ruling authorities. At very least, Luang Prabang was the seat of power for one of these kingdoms.

Based on the surviving palace, which is now a museum, this king was doing all right. That is, until the Communists threw him out in 1975 and drove him and his family into a prison cave, where they all died of starvation. The place they left behind though is still great. Compared to many Southeast Asian palaces, which are garish and glided to the hilt, the king of Laos lived with almost Shaker-like simplicity. The king's bedroom, while big, was almost empty. Apart from a canopy bed, the only other piece of furniture was a tall armoire. (Does the king hang up his gowns here?) The floors were bare, polished wood. The room was set on a courtyard, and open to the rest of the building with wide windows and doors.

The elegance of the palace carried through to the city at large. There are dozens of Buddhist temple compounds, still active with monks and prayers, beautifully decorated and open to the public. There are tree-lined walks along two major rivers, and a large park right in the middle of town. Cafes line the main boulevard. We spent many pleasant days there, eating meals in the garden of a vegetarian restaurant, feeding grains of rice to a rooster who came to our table, begging as if he were the family dog.

It wasn't until we left Luang Prabang that I got my only insight into the essential nature of Laos. We made a short diversion from our northward trek to take a 10 hour boat ride up the Mekong to a nowhere town called Pak Beng. The boat stops here only because this is far as you can get before nightfall. Of course, the boat was packed with tourists, all of whom got off the boat and immediately began looking for a place to sleep and a place to eat. When we got to town, it was easier to find someone willing to sell us marijuana and opium than it was to find a room in a guesthouse.

That was when I realized what Laos reminded me of: Jamaica. They even call dope "ganja" here. We came for sun and relaxation with a bit of foreign culture to spice it up. But you can still easily get scrambled eggs for breakfast; a hot shower; and a cold beer.

What we were seeing, however, was not Laos, but the way that Laos treats tourists. I know that I never really "saw" Laos in the same way that I see things in China. In China, we know so much more about the country. When we see men riding bicycle carts with hand lettered signs in the front, we know that they are unemployed and looking for work. We also know that these men are most likely discouraged farmers who have illegally moved to the city hoping to make some money off of their urban comrades. When I see coat racks for sale here, it tells me that prosperity is truly growing in this city, and not because coat racks are themselves a luxury item. You don't need to hang up your coat unless it is warmer inside your house than it is outside the house. It is only recently that any significant number of people in Kunming have been rich enough to heat their homes during the relatively short and mild winter.

I don't know where life is headed in Laos. In some essential way, despite independence in the middle of the 20th century and communism at the end of it, nothing has really changed in Laos since colonial times. Instead of foreign governors eating baguettes in cafes, you now have tourists. The French government no longer runs the public services, but the foreign NGOs do. And most people are still subsistence farmers, tending their fields in silent separation from all of it.

Laos is desperately trying to create a future for itself without following the path taken by neighboring Thailand. The two counties are very close, culturally as well as physically; for long periods of history they were one people. Even now, both their spoken and written languages are similar enough to be mutually intelligible. But politics and pride are forcing them to forge a separate identity. While the Laotians would be delighted to share modern Thailand's prosperity, they are horrified at the thought of also introducing the drugs, prostitution and general moral decay that they also see across the shallow river that separates them.

Talking to our Chinese friends since we've been back, Laos today sounds a lot like the China that our friends remember from their childhood. If, in 20 or 30 years, Laos has advanced to the level of economic development seen in modern day China, then the people will have done all right. But right now, tourism seems to be the only game in town. I hope there's more going on there behind the scenes than what I can see.