Position update III Meeting Mickey Mouse in a Laotian LaLa Land

I'm still speechless and appalled. How could I have been THIS WRONG ?

I should have read the small print !

Once you notice that the rich mid-50s well-dressed couples tourist crowd is there (you know, the ones with the 5 suitcases), it is already too late.   You're stuck in the WRONG place.

What theme should we use for Laos LaLaLand?  What attracts the right crowds?

I'll let someone else describe this place for me, because I'm still much too pissed off at what happened here.

I know. Let's just copy Hoi An in Vietnam.  It worked there !

And I feel confirmed in my urgency to see as much of the remaining real Vietnam and Cambodia before it too gets turned into that same sanitized and sterile, utterly joyless, completely artificial freak show that this place has become.  

MERRY CHRISTMAS?    

It's the RICHMOND Night Market !  (NO SMOKING, LOL!)

The italics  at the bottom of this post are a quote from another blog. Click on it!

iPhone????     GET ME OUT OF HERE !

Adventurous Kate tells it as it is:

Ah, Luang Prabang.  The jewel of Indochina.  The city about which everyone raves.  Naturally, I could only love it, couldn’t I?

Well, here’s the truth:

Luang Prabang made my skin crawl and I had to get the hell out of there.