At the weekend I went to Pai with Jane and Lauren, and awesome times were had all round. A slightly sad thing was that one of my favourite bars from when I went there two years ago had been shut down. I've also been hearing stories from the returned interns, and it seems like this part of the world has got worse, not better, in the past couple of years. A freeway has been built over the riverside area in Vientiane where I ate a plate of laap that was the spiciest meal I've had in my entire life. The lakeside hostels by Boeng Kak lake in Phnom Penh have been demolishes, and the local residents evicted, to make way for 'development' projects that benefit only rich Chinese, Korean and Japanese investors, not the Khmer people.
Beer at the riverside in Laos, last time around
But, as one of the other interns said, maybe it's just that "poverty looks better". The lakeside in Phnom Penh was full of trash and rats, and Vientiane really could do with some decent roads. Traffic in Chiang Mai is a nightmare when it rains (which it has been doing with increasing frequency) because tough planning laws mean that you can't just knock down a wat and build a freeway, and now people drive cars, not motorbikes. And the flashy Chiang Mai coffee shops have moved in to Pai, but those are Thai companies employing lots of local people, not reggae bars staffed by backpackers working for free.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel conflicted: these places had a certain ramshackle charm last time around, but I don't want people to stay poor just because it looks prettier. And I also feel conflicted because I said "trash" and "freeway" not "rubbish" and "motorway", and I am trying to cling on to the last vestiges of my englishness, even if it means people give me dodgy looks when I say, "I'm going out for a fag"...
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