No such choice in 1980. The bar of the Vieng Vilai was something of a graveyard. To order drinks one had to drag the manager from the reception desk. He had the only key to the drinks cupboard. Once Dtui had ordered on behalf of her group, it was obvious the manager wouldn’t know an Old-Fashioned from a Vieux Carré. In ’75, the hotels had been left in the hands of men who had never stayed in one. Since then, tourism had been nonexistent, and a number of hotels had been converted to dormitories for cadres and their families. The sudden and random government decision to open the city to tourists had thrown the hotel industry into a panic. The managers had no guest relation skills and no foreign languages. They most certainly could not recommend wines or explain the contents of a cocktail.

So, at the insistence of the chief of police, the manager of the Vieng Vilai handed over his keys, returned to his office and left the group to take care of itself. The journalists looked on in admiration as the policeman climbed over the bar and began to hand out drinks. They’d been there dry for three days. Under Phosy’s management, there was no tab and no limit. The Australians would have ordered beer had the fridge been plugged in but they settled for tall Cuba Librés without ice. This was a third-world country after all.

They pushed two tables together, raised their glasses to Laos, and Dtui began to recite the welcoming address she’d memorized. Given her limited contact with English speakers, she did a fine job but didn’t get very far. They applauded after her third sentence. The other ten would never be heard. During the free-for-all that followed, she realized the limitations of her medical textbooks. She was sadly lacking in vulgarities, recognition of accents, idioms, abbreviations and the words to rugby songs. This shortfall was soon addressed by the journalists as they set about her reeducation.

At one point in the ongoing translation for Phosy, who knew no English at all, she confessed that she had no idea what anyone was saying. And it was at that point that Marvin, a tall, blond Australian leaned forward, and, in fluent Lao, said:

“Perhaps we can help you in that matter?”

There were nine journalists at the table that evening: two Britons, two Australians, three Swedes, a Filipino and a Thai from the Bangkok Post, and all of them were competent in Lao. One or two might have been mistaken for Lao on the telephone. Even one of the Swedes, on his first trip to Indochina, had learned enough in the previous month to earn a trip to Laos.

“You see?” said Jim, a worldly Anglo-Australian photojournalist with a younger man’s face, “Western newspapers aren’t going to waste their budget on sending idiots to copy down whatever the Party tells them.”