Pakse and a Lesson Money Can't Buy

With the sightseeing in Laos all wrapped up, we returned to Pakse. If nothing untoward had occurred, we would have been taking a nice unhurried stroll in the city, where we were based for a night before returning to Ubon Ratchathani the following morning.

But something had happened.

Below: Hotel Transylvania. No, that's giving Transylvania a bad name. The Champasak Palace Hotel in Pakse - good views from the top, but bad reviews otherwise all the way to the bottom. You can get better views and service from the Pakse Hotel in the middle of town.

Theft in Champasak Palace

Four days had passed since we first checked into the Champasak Palace Hotel. There, right under our noses and without us realising until two days later, our money was stolen. We had returned from dinner at the hotel restaurant when we saw that one of the doors (there were three, two of which were previously locked and not used) to our room was ajar. Ostensibly, our valuables were still physically present. Unbeknownst to us, somebody slipped in and away with a part of the Singapore dollars, Thai baht and American dollars which we brought.

When we realised at check-out about the theft, we had a bus to Pakse to catch. Perhaps we should have taken the matter up immediately with the hotel management, or even with the police. We didn't, though. Looking on the bright side, our itinerary wasn't derailed by dishonesty. We later found out, when we took any action at all, how dismally little would have been accomplished even if we had reported the matter immediately.

We knew we couldn't get back the money. But we hoped to secure a police report for insurance purposes. When we returned from Si Phan Don, we opted to stay at the Pakse Hotel in the centre of town. This was an infinitely better choice. Some helpful individuals we spoke to quickly dispelled any residual notion we had of the police force's effectiveness in those parts. We arrived at Pakse Hotel at 4 pm - we were told the police were unlikely to be there from 3.30 pm. How about early the next morning, we asked, just before catching the bus back to Ubon? Impossible, too. The police have to investigate first before issuing any report. This could take a week or more, and the actual issuance of a report would depend on how much money is going the other way. Amidst the uncertainty, we managed to arrange a meeting with the hotel's Managing Director, who said there was nothing he could do - given the number of days that have passed and the fact that our money wasn't in a safe.

So what has this taught us? Firstly, that we never should have let our guard down. The level of a hotel's security is never commensurate with its level of classification. The second, after we shared this experience on online travel forums, was not so much a lesson as a reminder. While these forums are excellent sources of information, sometimes they turn out to be gladiatorial arenas. There were a number of responses which provided useful suggestions on how the theft which we encountered could have been prevented. There were also an inordinate number of "why on earth did you", "did you expect" and "you should". Well, we were thankful that neither our passports nor the rest of our cash were taken. We also thought twice about appreciating the tender mercies of thieves.

Below: better views from Le Panorama Restaurant on the seventh floor of Pakse Hotel (globetrotting lizard included).

Sights and sounds, and a dash of history

And so sightseeing in Pakse was curtailed, and the day marred, somewhat. We took a wander from late afternoon, but couldn't see a lot as day waned and the streets emptied. Given the faded facades which dominated the streetscape, we felt like archaeologists unearthing and piecing together fragments of a mosaic. A few of these fragments stuck in the mind - the prevalence of Chinese and Vietnamese influence in the city and the ubiquitous Hammer and Sickle which invariably accompanied the display of each Lao national flag.

Above (top to bottom): the ubiquitous Hammer and Sickle aside nearly every Lao national flag - one sometimes forgets Vietnam isn't the only nominally Communist state in ASEAN; the Chinese Society Building in downtown Pakse, a reminder of Chinese involvement in regional colonial enterprises.

Below (top to bottom): Getting around in Pakse; one last glimpse of the Mekong, en route to Ubon.

Pakse was founded in 1905 by the French as an administrative centre. The Chinese and Vietnamese influx was a product of the city's colonial origins. Many Chinese, like those elsewhere in Southeast Asia, hailed from the southern Chinese provinces, who arrived in southern Laos after sailing first to Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam.

The Vietnamese were brought in by the French to support the colonial administrative edifice, as some Indians were by the British to run their own colonial possessions. Later, Vietnamese influence extended also to nationalist politics. The Pathet Lao, a leftist group which came to power in 1975 with victory in the Lao civil war, was a child of Vietnamese clout and support. (We observed both facts in the flesh in the Vietnamese-run Dao Lin Restaurant, where the portrait of Ho Chi Minh gazed benevolently on patrons - they serve pretty good food too, I must add.) The Hammer and Sickle that fly today next to the Lao national flag harked from that year, when the Lao People's Democratic Republic was proclaimed, and the monarchy abolished.

With the years of relative stability and the number of companies today that are investing in the area, it is hard to argue that Laos has seen better days. But the crumbling infrastructure stands witness to long decades of strife between the pre-Second World War 1930s and the conclusion of the civil war in the late 1970s.

In a sense, Champasak Palace Hotel represents what Laos seems to have become today. It was literally meant to be a palace. War thought otherwise, and drove its resident potentate out of the country. Today it remains a pretty building with some disappointingly unpretty standards - a palace with its heart broken by misplaced youth, and its spirit sapped by middle age.