Laos through my eyes – Lord Wilson

This article is part of a series of guest blogs contributed by Brits who have lived and worked in Laos, or who have other interesting links to Laos. 

I was posted to the British Embassy in Vientiane in 1959, only four years after the Embassy had first been set up. It was a very small mission. Only an Ambassador and two diplomatic staff.

I arrived in the unusual circumstances that I had actually been on my way to Beirut to learn Arabic and was told, when I arrived, that I was to go to Vientiane instead. My luggage had not yet caught up with me, so I had only the tropical suit I had bought for the flight Bangkok and an ice-axe I had been using to climb in the Austrian Alps.

That form of arrival seemed entirely in keeping with the rudimentary nature of the embassy we then had and the hand-to-mouth existence we lived. The small embassy office building had just been completed. But the Ambassador’s Residence was still being built and, as an unplanned new arrival, I lived for the first few months in a bed-sitting room in a small house in the middle of a rice paddy field, before moving to share a newly built bungalow with a fellow member of the Embassy in a small compound beside the Mekong River.

What brought me this unexpected posting was a bye-product of the Civil War that was then dividing Laos and the Vietnam War being in danger of spilling over into the rest of Indo-China.

There had been rumours of troop movements crossing from what was then North Vietnam into Laos. As a Co-Chairman of the 1954 Geneva Conference which had tried to bring peace to Indo-China after the defeat and withdrawal of France, and as a member of the then South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), the UK risked being brought directly into the conflict if there had indeed been troop movements across the border.

The British Government concluded that they needed to be better informed about what was going on in Laos. They decided to reinforce our small-scale Embassy with an aircraft for the use of the Ambassador and Military Attaché and a junior diplomat. That Third Secretary was me.

Despite being completely unexpected, and despite the Civil War affecting large areas of the country, being posted to the tiny British Embassy in Laos was a shear delight. Vientiane was still a small town with mostly French colonial style buildings and with the streets by the river lined by flame-of-the-forest trees and their strikingly beautiful red flowers.

The British were among a very small handful of foreign diplomatic missions. For those of us who were there everything was very informal. Since the telephone system didn’t always work, and without a car of my own, I soon realised that the best way to contact somebody in the Foreign Ministry was to get on my bicycle and go round to see the personally.

The other joy of Laos in those days was travelling outside the capital. The Civil War made it impossible to visit some parts of the country. In other parts who controlled what was sometimes unclear. When faced with an unexpected roadblock, it was useful to explain, in Lao, that one was not an American but rather a member of the British Embassy. That seemed to work, despite some anxious moments of uncertainly, whichever side was manning the roadblock.

Such episodes were only occasional. The more normal experience was to be welcomed wherever one went in the countryside and amongst the villages. The Embassy had a converted van which could be used as a mobile cinema complete with its own generator.

We would take this van to villages within a day’s drive of Vientiane, set up a screen in the middle of the village and have the fun of seeing the whole village, young and old, turn out after dark to watch whatever film we had brought with us. Then we would be invited to sleep on the balcony of one of the village houses after the show.

It has to be admitted that some of the films we received were not exactly tailor-made for Laos. I remember one being about Captain Scott’s famous expedition to the South Pole. The fact that all the scenes pictured snow and the sound-track was in English didn’t seem to worry anybody. All enjoyed the experience of seeing a film in their own village.

I remember also a journey to Xieng Khoung and the Plain of Jars. It was the time of the Lunar New Year and we were able to take part in the festivities of the Meo (Miao) people there with their beautiful costumes and the haunting sound of the Khene. I was even able to encourage some to learn Scottish Country dancing using the bagpipe practice chanter I had brought with me.

That year I spent in Laos was a wonderful experience. Despite whatever difficulties there may have been, practical or political, the friendliness of the people and the beauty of the countryside remain abiding memories. Furthermore, that experience made me realise that, rather than return to Beirut to learn Arabic, I would far rather stay in East and South East Asian. Luckily the Foreign Office was prepared to fall in with my wishes and I left Laos to go to Hong Kong University and learn Chinese.

It is a great delight to know that a resident British Embassy in Vientiane is now about to reopen. May it contribute to a warm relationship between Laos and the United Kingdom and may those who work there enjoy it as much as I did more that fifty years ago.