Narco Tourism In Laos

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I visited Vang Vieng back in 2000 and remember it as a small, quiet, laid back town of two streets with a sprinkling of guesthouses. The Nam Song river borders the town, separating it from small rice fields backed by towering limestone karsts on the otherside.

For a few dollars you can hire an inflatable tube and float down river through the countryside surrounded by tranquility and nature. Across the river from the town a small tractor and trailer carries groups of backpackers along a dusty dirt road to the fabled turquoise stream, and the entrance to some of the many cave systems that extend beneath the karstic landscape are guarded by locals, requesting money for a guided tour through the limestone labyrinths. Provison of a leaking wet cell battery powered headlamp was indicative of the amateur nature of business and the embryonic stage of tourism development. Places and activities not yet scarred by disaster or subject to external scrutiny have no reason to implement health and safety measures. This apparent lawlessness is perhaps the greatest attraction of places like Vang Vieng for western backpackers who are stiffled back home by endless restrictions and legislation.

I was surprised to discover recently that Rough Guides directly refer to Vang Vieng, Laos as a centre for narco-tourism in their “First Time Around the World” book. A comment that seems grossly irresponsible for such a mainstream publisher.

“This hangout, a modern-day Manali, is one of the budding centres of narco-tourism. Discount opium and weed beckon travellers (over 35 guesthouses full of them) to this otherwise easily missed hideaway. Muang Sing, another Laotian centre for delirium, gets plenty of narco-traffic as well.”

Although this may be true, is it helpful in anyway to the development of tourism in Laos to refer to it in this way?

Inevitably perhaps, with all its charms Vang Vieng may have spiralled into another ‘backpacker utopia’, much like many other destinations that have come before it. Impressively enterprising residents eager to profit from a growing market open cafes that screen back-to-back Friends episodes, serve refreshments laced with narcotics and fill the air with Bob Marley tunes, creating a liberal travellers’ nirvana. A nirvana with no sense of place. Unfortunately such unmanaged, consumer driven development often dominates any commitment to conservation, and the eradication of another once sleepy backwater ensues. The darker side of tourism also always manages to find its way in, be it sex-tourism, human trafficking, environmental exploitation, or in the case of Vang Vieng narco-tourism. Opium production and distribution in Laos has a long history. It is part of the Golden Triangle, and is the world’s third largest producer of opium – the parent product of the heroin sold on streets worldwide.

The ethnic Hmong people are the largest producers of opium in Laos. They became an integral part of the CIA-trained militia during the Vietnam War in the fight against communism, helping rescue downed US pilots and disrupting North Vietnamese use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The huge importance of opium trade to the Hmong economy was recognised by the US and they took advantage of this by paying them for their work as mercenaries by purchasing opium. Air America aircraft would set-down on local landing sites, buy the opium for cash and fly off to distribute it.

The Americans weren’t the first though to exploit the opium economy of the Hmong. In the last few years of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) the French were desperate for a way to finance their clandestine operations and decided to use military aircraft to link Laotian poppy fields with opium dens in Saigon, Vietnam. The mountainous landscape makes the transport of opium through the country extremely difficult, and once the war ended in 1954 the French withdrew, the aircraft stopped flying and Lao’s opium trade fell away.

There is a strong drive by the Laotian and U.S. government to eradicate opium production. The Lao Government often accuses the Hmong of being the cause of the country’s problems, with the high levels of deforestation their slash and burn lifestyle causes, and the widespread cultivation of opium. Narco-tourism contributes to an already complex problem, encourages the spread of opium addiction amongst villagers, and a whole range of social problems.

Since the end of the Vietnam War the Hmong have been subjected to a campaign of genocide by communist Laos and Vietnam. The Hmong general (Vang Pao), who led the secret army in 1961 against the communists fled to the US at the end of the war and now resides in California where he leads the United Lao Liberation Front (ULLF), demanding democracy and a reinstatement of the monarchy in Laos. Plans for a coup in Laos organised by the ULLF were recently uncovered by the US Government. The charge being brought against them is laudable – conspiracy to violate the federal Neutrality Act by planning a military invasion of Laos, a nation at peace with the United States. They’re also charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure people in a foreign country.

An article in Newstatesman, July 2008 – Beauty At A Price – says this:

“Drug tourism also flourishes in neighbouring Laos, particularly in Vang Vieng, a small town wedged in a river valley lined by limestone cliffs. Dozens of limestone caves, many of them holy to the Laos people, are Vang Vieng’s main daytime attraction, but when night falls, foreigners often drift towards the town’s half-dozen opium dens.”

An article in the Herald Tribune, March 1999 – Drug Tourism/In Laos, English Menus and Opium Dens: Westerners Flock East for an ‘Asian Trip’ – however says:

“The venues catering to foreigners are concentrated in a handful of towns and the amount of opium smoked by foreigners is still very small compared with total national production and export, but international drug control officials say they fear a serious drug-tourism problem has taken root.”

An article in Time magazine, July 2001 – ‘Pipe Dreams‘ – tells the story.

“…in a little bar where two Vietnamese men sit drinking bottled Bia Lao beer, smoking A-daeng cigarettes and spitting onto the concrete floor, there is plenty of opium. Several foreigners are already in the back-room den, crashed out on dank mattresses having puffed their way through half a dozen pipes each.”

South East Asia online guide specialist Travelfish say this about Vang Vieng:

“Every other property in the town is undergoing some kind of building work, and the development is now starting to take its toll on the special environment which has created the tourism. Rocks are quarried from the limestone mountain range and gravel extracted by the truckload from the Nam Song river bed to feed the demand for building materials. Unscrupulous or ignorant — take your pick.”

Wikitravel says:

“Be prepared to listen to a lot of Bob Marley (it’s as if someone bought the complete Friends box set and Bob Marley Legend and burnt copies of them for the entire town)! If you get sick of it there is a “Jack Johnson” bar which plays something else.”

At article in the New York Times, March 2006 – Laos: Out From Under an Opium Cloud – however says:

“Just four years ago, a stop in this tranquil town was de rigueur for drug-touring trekkers. Local weed and Burmese speed were sold openly on the street, and by some accounts the opium dens outnumbered the guesthouses. The backpackers flocked, and haughty fans of the writer Paul Theroux, whose travels are held up by purists as the “right” way to do it, announced that Vang Vieng was over…with development moving ahead — six new guesthouses are opening this year, bringing the total to nearly 70 — hotel operators and tour guides see a brighter future in inner-tube rentals than in opium dens.”

A rebuttal to this article was posted by The Akha Heritage Foundation – New York Times Prints Pure Stupidity About Opium in Laos.

An Article by The World Rainforest Movement – Laos: US War on drugs is leading to increased Poverty.

“Opium can have devastating effects on communities, families and individuals, especially when opium use becomes widespread in a village. But when opium addicts lose their home-grown supply, they are forced to buy it from neighbouring villages. They are often tempted to buy cheaper and more dangerous alternatives such as methamphetamine derivatives. “This has had consequences far worse for local communities than opium has ever had and is leading to severe impoverishment and cultural disruption,” says the anonymous development worker.”

A paper written in the Journal of Third World Studies – Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992.

An article written by the Media Awareness Project – Laos Becoming Druggie Tourist Stop.