French Colonial Lao

For those of you that didn’t know, Lao was formerly a French colony. It began around 1890 and continued long after 1945, the year that Lao declared officially its independence from colonial rule. As a result, the french presence in the Lao landscape remains. The gorgeous French colonial buildings in the old capital of Luang Prabang are a reminder, as are the axially planned streets of Vientiane with its own Lao Arch de Triumphe below. Everywhere you go there are freshly baked baguettes, albiet, not very french-tasting ones, but baguettes nonetheless.

We were trotting along the blistering hot streets of Vientiane in the Lao winter when we came across what we thought was a mirage. A gigantic, beautiful french colonial mansion that had its own rainforest! It was, in fact, the headquarters of Carol Cassidy, an American who arrived with the UN Development Program in 1989 and, to cut the story short, helped to revitalise the weaving tradition in Lao that had lay dormant due to war and cash crop farming of opium.