Two decades after the war in Indochina and the communist takeover,Laos re-opened its doors to the world and Brett Dakin was hired as a consultant at the government's fledgling toursim authority; a sudden leap from his Princeton classrooms to Laos' corridors of power and living rooms of the poor.Here,among other,you'll meet the auther's boss,a wealthy general whose power and reputation scares his countrymen; a prince with connections to the french colonial past, now struggling to survive under the communists; an American pilot who fought during the war and never returned; and a group of rich Lao twenty-somethings who have all the money they could wantm, but cannot find contentment in their homeland.
This is first-hand account of a desperately poor country struggling with economic crisis,political instability,and the legacy of war.Above all,it is the story of a young American coming to terms with his country's role in the world at the beginning of a new century.