TOURISM DAMAGE – GREENWATCH
September 1st, 2003
BY KEITH NUTHALLIN 1995, when I visited the Laos capital Vientiane, it was a sleepy place; a quiet low rise French colonial town on the banks of the Mekong, a listless, aimless, but charming mix of Soviet-style socialist monuments, Buddhist temples and Provencal town houses. It was the year the country started to open its doors to independent tourists and four years later, on a follow up visit, things had changed. Builders had knocked down ramshackle homes to erect garish neon-lit Holiday Inn-style hotels, road widening had uprooted elegant avenues of trees that ...
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