Satellite dishes and their TVs are everywhere - each small village has a few. TV has become a huge part of the culture. In this way most people have an image of a more desirable lifestyle to ponder and manifest. And the explosion of tourism is how the money to fund that change is provided. Yet the distribution of tourists’ money is very uneven.

In the cities you see,among traditional buildings and barely adequate infrastructure, new modern buildings and vehicles. Many internet cafes have the latest flatscreen monitors and computers. Nearby people live on dirt floors and hardly any money. In some cases it appears the digital revolution has reached people before the industrial.

Most tourists like their comfort and spend their money in the cities. So the greatest change is there. In the country most buildings are traditional bamboo huts, people use water provided by humanitarian aid projects and live with a variety of animals that are a source of food and double as the waste disposal system. Plastics and other modern rubbish is still disposed of in the same way but stays around, scattered everywhere.

To see the “real Laos” (if it still exists), you need to go where most tourists wouldnt - into the remote country regions, where there small villages with no guesthouses.

http://garycycle.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/the-mechanisation-of-laos/