Happy New Year from Laos

Dear readers, thanks for your support and your comments and/or just reading my blog. Another year in Laos passed by, and pessimistic as I am, it wasn't the best year for Laos. Although the make-up department was quite busy with paving already paved roads and building nice villas for a one-night-stand stay of some very important people, I haven't see much progress for the average people.

As expected, once the (few) representatives form foreign media left the country after the ASEM summit, times for those not always happy were getting tougher. One had to leave, one disappeared. Reasons for the latter are unclear, as fog is.

My lookout for 2013: Neighboring countries will get more influence, while those far away will still waste money for useless projects, while disturbing the market for human ressources by overpaying. We will not see any construcution significantly started on Khouvieng, and I am in doubt about the projects on the Mekong river and the That Luang marsh as well. Big C will still remain in Thailand, so that Lao people will still spend a lot across the bridge.


Anyway, everyone have a happy New Year 2013 (it will be the year of the snake, but she will be inaugurated in February)