Laos through my eyes – Ivan Scholte

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.

Answered prayers

Seventeen years ago I came on holiday to Laos and fell in love, not with my then girlfriend, but with the unspoilt beauty of Luang Prabang.

For a number of years I had been looking to open a restaurant and small hotel but it never crossed my mind that I had actually found the ideal place. It was only when I returned five years later, and stayed at the Duang Champa hotel and discovered that the place was up for sale, that it dawned on me that I had found the answer to my prayers.

It all seemed so simple; buy a hotel and restaurant, do up hotel and restaurant, re-open a hotel and restaurant. How difficult could it be?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen like that. Eleven years ago nothing was simple. For instance I’m sure you don’t realise how many door hinges a hotel needs and at that time Luang Prabang was particularly deficient in the hinge department.

Or what to say to a builder who says he has to go to temple and can’t finish putting in the kitchen sink.

Or what to say to the carpenter when he has made the window-frames 10 centimetres bigger than the windows.

Sometimes, it was a case of one step forward and ten steps back, but after many a crisis and hand wringing, The Apsara opened for business in December 2002.

Little did I realise that the roller coaster was just setting off, it’s one thing to build a hotel but quite another to run one.

One of my first priorities was to get a cushion on every seat, In Luang Prabang at that time there wasn’t a cushion in sight and the numbness one suffered which became known as “Laos bottom” was a serious hazard.

From then on it was taking one thing at a time and now I can proudly say we have extra virgin olive oil (not brought out by friends from Europe), ditto parmesan, wifi (no more queuing behind the mini monks in internet cafes), and though I say it myself; the finest dry martinis in Laos.

In fact so much did I enjoy it all that I went through the whole process again and built and opened a ritzier version with pool: The Apsara Rive Droite across the Nam Kham river.

Was it all worth it? Yes. I don’t think there’s a more enchanting place to live in South East Asia. When you take the kindness, humour and wonderful manners of the Lao people and add it together with the sheer majesty and beauty of the scenery, I don’t think there’s a better place to live.

Yes it has its problems, where doesn’t? But I’d rather have them here than in some smokey dirty city.

Saint Teresa of Avila said “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” But I beg to disagree.