This comprehensive and vivid history of Laos is an ideal introduction for tourists, business travelers, and students. Informative and portable, it chronicles the history of Laos from ancient times, when the dynastic states of the region waxed and waned, to the turmoil of the Vietnam War and independence from France. This guide investigates these key events under a new light and presents serious challenges to the conventional views about Laos’s intriguing history.


A Short History Of Laos: The Land In Between

Dr. Siri Paiboun, one of the last doctors left in Laos after the Communist takeover, has been drafted to be national coroner. He is untrained for the job, but this independent seventy-two-year-old has an outstanding qualification for the role: curiosity. And he does not mind incurring the wrath of the party's hierarchy as he unravels mysterious murders, because the spirits of the dead are on his side—and a little too close for comfort. Dr. Siri performs autopsies and begins to solve the mysteries relating to a series of deaths by what seem to be bear bites, to explain why a government official ran at full speed through a seventh-story window and fell to his death, and to discover the origins of the two charred bodies from the crashed helicopter in the temple at Luang Prabang. As it turns out, not surprisingly, not all is peaceful and calm in the new Communist paradise of Laos.

Thirty-Three Teeth (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #2)

Dr. Siri Paiboun, reluctant national coroner of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, is summoned to a remote location in the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the current government had hidden out in caves, waiting to assume power. Now, as a major celebration of the new regime is scheduled to take place, an arm is found protruding from the concrete walk that had been laid from the President’s former cave hideout to his new house beneath the cliffs. Dr. Siri is ordered to supervise the disinterment of the body attached to the arm, identify the corpse and discover how he died.

The autopsy provides some surprises but it is his gift as a shaman that enables the seventy-two-year old doctor to discover why the victim was buried alive and, eventually, the identity of his killer.

Disco For The Departed (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #3)

One Foot in Laos

Laos, 1976: Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor, has been unwillingly appointed the national coroner of newly-socialist Laos. Though his lab is underfunded, his boss is incompetent, and his support staff is quirky to say the least, Siri’s sense of humor gets him through his often frustrating days.

When the body of the wife of a prominent politician comes through his morgue, Siri has reason to suspect the woman has been murdered. To get to the truth, Siri and his team face government secrets, spying neighbors, victim hauntings, Hmong shamans, botched romances, and other deadly dangers. Somehow, Siri must figure out a way to balance the will of the party and the will of the dead.

The Coroner's Lunch (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #1)

Natacha Du Pont De Bie is no ordinary tourist. She'll trek for hours or even days in search of a good lunch. "Ant Egg Soup" is the result of her adventures in Laos, the stories of the people she met, the places she visited and, of course, the amazing food she tasted. Drinking raw turkey blood with herbs in a tribal village, cooking Paradise chicken in a little guest house by the Kung Si waterfalls, and sampling fried cricket during the Festival of the Golden Stupa are just a few examples. Funny and refreshing, with recipes and lines drawings, Ant Egg Soup will awaken the senses while redefining the art of travelling and eating abroad.

Ant Egg Soup: The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos

Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty—and their nobility.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

Love Began in Laos: The Story of an Extraordinary Life

In Search of Laos - revealing new details of the fate of one of Asia's oldest monarchies.

∗ A new and updated edition of Kremmer's award-winning title. twenty years after the Indochina wars, Christopher Kremmer visited Laos - at the crossroads of change in Southeast Asia. He started his journey in the tranquillity of Luang Prabang, once the royal capital. But despite its ancient culture and stately airs, the town - like Laos itself - is a place of secrets, mysteries and nagging questions. Setting off in search of the lost royal family, a 600-year-old dynasty consumed by the violent troubles of the 1960s and 1970s, the author reveals a small land-locked corner of Asia struggling to come to terms with the legacies of the American war and Asian communism. this is travel with a mission and it takes the autor deep into Laos - to the bomb craters and enigmatic stone containers of the Plain of Jars, the brooding caves and limestone peaks of Houaphan near the Lao border with Vietnam, and the southern provinces bordering Cambodia. Stalking the Elephant Kings tells the story of a Southeast Asian revolution and its tragic consequences.

Bamboo Palace: Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos

Originally published in 1951, it is said that A Dragon Apparent inspired Graham Greene to go to Vietnam and write The Quiet American. Norman Lewis traveled in Indo-China during the precarious last years of the French colonial regime. Much of the charm and grandeur of the ancient native civilizations survived until the devastation of the Vietnam War. Lewis could still meet a King of Cambodia and an Emperor of Vietnam; in the hills he could stay in the spectacular longhouses of the highlanders; on the plains he could be enchanted by a people whom he found "gentle, tolerant and dedicated to the pleasures and satisfactions of a discriminating kind."

A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam

Lost in Yaba is a true story about an expat who becomes addicted to the infamous drug 'yaba' in Laos. Walt Gleeson planned to only go to Laos on a visa trip from Thailand, but he ended up staying in Vientiane and Vang Vieng for over a year. Most foreigners who visit Vientiane can hardly believe it is a capital city. It is a sleepy, peaceful city in one of the most under developed counties in Asia. But there is a hidden side to Vientiane that most foreigners do not get to see. During Walt's time in Vientiane, he witnessed the underbelly of the city first hand - the drugs, the prostitution and the manipulation of western men for money. This provides a unique glimpse into the dark side of Laos.

Lost in Yaba: Down and Out in Laos

This is an effective and concise self–study Lao language book.

Lao for Beginners is for the person who is beginning to learn Lao. It is an incredibly useful introduction to spoken Lao for tourists, businesspeople or students. "Lao for Beginners" is primarily a workbook full of exercises to help beginners practice and acquire the ability to communicate with Lao people in spoken Lao. It is not a phrase book to scratch the surface of the Lao language. The book has been tested in classrooms and by individuals who have used it successfully to learn Lao. This beginning Lao text was designed for people who want to learn how to speak Lao fast. The book mainly teaches speaking Lao although there is a section which teaches reading Lao. The vocabulary in the whole text is limited to the 1,000 most frequently used words in everyday speech based on one of the author's own research in Vietnamese. The Lao words are listed in a special glossary for beginners which is arranged in English alphabetical order. To make studying easier, all exercises are written in phonetic Lao as well as authentic Lao script. As an additional aid, a review of the major features of Lao grammar is condensed into only 16 pages (including very useful tables) and is located in one place so that it can be read quickly and used as a reference frequently. "Lao for Beginners" is organized in five parts:
Part 1: How to speak Lao.
Part 2: Grammar Review.
Part 3: How to Read Lao.
Part 4: Lao–English Glossary for Beginners.

Lao for Beginners: An Introduction to the Spoken and Written Language of Laos

In The Worst Motorcycle in Laos: Rough Travels in Asia, author Chris Tharp recounts his misadventures in countries across the region he’s called home for the last ten years. He takes us to the back-alley restaurants of Vietnam on a quest to eat cobra; to the neon streets of Japan, where he goes on tour with a jazz band, gets lost in the depraved depths of a comic book shop, and nearly causes a riot at a punk rock bar; to far Western China, where he narrowly misses a terrorist attack and endures a harrowing drive on the world’s highest highway. Whether he’s losing his lunch on the boat ride to the disputed Dokdo islets, surviving a bus wreck on a Korean highway, eating chicken embryos in the Philippines, or riding a dilapidated motorbike through the dirt tracks of Laos, Tharp delivers his tales with a mixture of honesty, wit, and humor that will inspire readers to strap on a backpack and hit the road.

The Worst Motorcycle in Laos: Rough Travels in Asia

Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Nobel-nominated scholar and photojournalist, has followed the plight of the Hmong and the war in Indochina since the 1960s. The staunchest of allies, the Hmong sided with the Americans against the North Vietnamese and were foot soldiers in the brutal secret war for Laos. Since the war, abandoned by their American allies, the Hmong have been subjected to a campaign of genocide by the North Vietnamese, including the use of chemical weapons. Tragic Mountains moves from the big picture of international diplomacy and power politics to the small villages and heroic engagements in the Lao jungle. It is a story of courage, brutality, heroism, betrayal, resilience, and hope.

Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992

"“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”"

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the "Shiver" trilogy and "The Scorpio Races", comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)

Praise for the Dr. Siri series: 

“The consistently fine characterizations of the entire cast are matched by a tightly constructed plot.”â€”"Booklist" 

“Glimpses of everyday life in Laos will appeal to those readers curious about a culture unfamiliar to most Americans.”â€”"Publishers Weekly" 

Three young Laotian women have died of fencing sword wounds. Each of them had studied abroad in an Eastern bloc country. Before he can complete his investigation, Dr. Siri is lured to Cambodia by an all-expenses-paid trip. Accused of spying for the Vietnamese, he is imprisoned, beaten, and threatened with death. The Khmer Rouge is relentless, and it is touch and go for the dauntless, seventy-four-year-old nationalâ€”and onlyâ€”coroner of Laos. 

 Colin Cotterill was born in London in 1952 and taught and trained teachers around the world before settling in Thailand. He spent several years in Laos, initially with UNESCO, before he moved on to become involved in child protection in the region and set up a non-governmental organization in Phuket. He later moved on to ECPAT, an international organization combating child prostitution and pornography. Colin writes and illustrates full time, and lives in Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand with his wife, Jessi, and a bunch of dogs. He is a Dilys Award winner.

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #7)

Laos, 1979: Dr. Siri Paiboun, the twice retired ex-National Coroner of Laos, receives an unmarked package in the mail. Inside is a handwoven "pha sin", a colorful traditional skirt worn in northern Laos. A lovely present, but who sent it to him, and why? And, more importantly, why is there a severed human finger stitched into the "sin"’s lining?

Siri is convinced someone is trying to send him a message and won’t let the matter rest until he’s figured it out. He finagles a trip up north to the province where the "sin" was made, not realizing he is embarking on a deadly scavenger hunt. Meanwhile, the northern Lao border is about to erupt into violence—and Dr. Siri and his entourage are walking right into the heart of the conflict.

Six and a Half Deadly Sins (Dr. Siri Paiboun #10)

"Along the Mekong, from northern Tibet to Lijiang, from Luang Prabang to Phnom Penh to Can Lo, I moved from one world to another, among cultural islands often ignorant of each other’s presence. Yet each island, as if built on shifting sands and eroded and reshaped by a universal sea, was re-forming itself, or was being remolded, was expanding its horizons or sinking under the rising waters of a cultural global warming. It was a journey between worlds, worlds fragiley conjoined by a river both ominous and luminescent, muscular and bosomy, harsh and sensuous. 
"
From windswept plateaus to the South China Sea, the Mekong flows for three thousand miles, snaking its way through Southeast Asia. Long fascinated with this part of the world, former "New York Times "correspondent Edward Gargan embarked on an ambitious exploration of the Mekong and those living within its watershed. The River’s Tale is a rare and profound book that delivers more than a correspondent’s account of a place. It is a seminal examination of the Mekong and its people, a testament to the their struggles, their defeats and their victories.

The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong

In poverty-stricken 1978 Laos, a man with a truck from the city was “somebody,” a catch for even the prettiest village virgin. The corpse of one of these bucolic beauties turns up in Dr. Siri’s morgue and his curiosity is piqued. The victim was tied to a tree and strangled but she had not, as the doctor had expected, been raped, although her flesh had been torn. And though the victim had clear, pale skin over most of her body, her hands and feet were gnarled, callused, and blistered. 

On a trip to the hinterlands, Siri discovers that the beautiful female corpse bound to a tree has already risen to the status of a rural myth. This has happened many times before. He sets out to investigate this unprecedented phenomenonâ€”a serial killer in peaceful Buddhist Laosâ€”only to discover when he has identified the murderer that not only pretty maidens are at risk. Seventy-three-year-old coroners can be victims, too.

The Merry Misogynist (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #6)

In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America. But lacking a written language of their own, the Hmong experience has been primarily recorded by others. Driven to tell her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, "The Latehomecomer" is Kao Kalia Yang’s tribute to the remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard.

Beginning in the 1970s, as the Hmong were being massacred for their collaboration with the United States during the Vietnam War, Yang recounts the harrowing story of her family’s captivity, the daring rescue undertaken by her father and uncles, and their narrow escape into Thailand where Yang was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp.

When she was six years old, Yang’s family immigrated to America, and she evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Through her words, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by an entire community have finally found a voice.

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

Lao royalty's engagement in all the major events of the country in the last century forms a rich and complex narrative. But with the 1975 Communist revolution this history fell into oblivion and has all but disappeared from public memory.

"The Last Century of Lao Royalty" recovers this history by presenting a wealth of rare documents and photographs. They bring to life the political, social, and cultural activities of the members of the royal families and provide a unique perspective on the role of royalty in modern Laos. Royalty was, in fact, a force for moderation, modernization, and democracy during the period of the Royal Lao Government (1947-1975). The last king, King Sisavang Vatthana, for instance, refused to give his imprimatur to a military dictatorship because he was so doggedly committed to constitutional rule.

The Last Century Of Lao Royalty: A Documentary History

Communist revolutions in this century have suppressed existing ritual and symbolic structures and invented new ones. Armed with new flags, new national celebrations, or new school textbooks, they have attempted to reconstruct social memory. This fascinating work of political anthropology examines the case of Laos from the heady days of the 1975 revolution to the more sober "post-socialist" present. Grant Evans traces the attempt at ritual and symbolic change in Laos, and the recent reemergence of older and deeper cultural structures, while identifying what has perhaps been irretrievably lost. In this challenging study of the cultural consequences of failed total revolution, Evans reaches some striking conclusions concerning the nature of social memory, cultural possibilities foregone, and the need for cultural continuity.

The Politics Of Ritual And Remembrance: Laos Since 1975

Lao Peasants Under Socialism

A fiendishly clever mystery in which Dr. Siri and his friends investigate three interlocking murders—and the ungodly motives behind them

Laos, 1979: Retired coroner Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, have never been able to turn away a misfit. As a result, they share their small Vientiane house with an assortment of homeless people, mendicants, and oddballs. One of these oddballs is Noo, a Buddhist monk, who rides out on his bicycle one day and never comes back, leaving only a cryptic note in the refrigerator: a plea to help a fellow monk escape across the Mekhong River to Thailand.

Naturally, Siri can’t turn down the adventure, and soon he and his friends find themselves running afoul of Lao secret service officers and famous spiritualists. Buddhism is a powerful influence on both morals and politics in Southeast Asia. In order to exonerate an innocent man, they will have to figure out who is cloaking terrible misdeeds in religiosity.


"From the Hardcover edition."

I Shot the Buddha (Dr. Siri Paiboun #11)

This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Laos takes a more thorough look at the early history of Laos along with a more comprehensive survey of the social, economic, cultural and religious phenomena that characterize this small Asian country. In addition, the evolution of Laos as a nation, and its relations with other states, are given special attention.

Historical Dictionary Of Laos (Second Edition)

Dr. Siri might finally be allowed to retire (again). Although he loves his two morgue assistants, he’s tired of being Laos’s national coroner, a job he never wanted in the first place. Plus, he’s pushing eighty, and wants to spend some time with his wife before his untimely death (which has been predicted by the local transvestite fortune teller).

But retirement is not in the cards for Dr. Siri after all. He’s dragged into one last job for the Lao government: supervising an excavation for the remains of U.S. fighter pilot who went down in the remote northern Lao jungle ten years earlier. The presence of American soldiers in Laos is a hot-button issue for both the Americans and the Lao involved, and the search party includes high-level politicians and scientists. But one member of the party is found dead, setting off a chain of accidents Dr. Siri suspects are not completely accidental. Everyone is trapped in a cabin in the jungle, and the bodies are starting to pile up. Can Dr. Siri get to the bottom of the MIA pilot’s mysterious story before the fortune teller’s prediction comes true?

Slash and Burn (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #8)

Eighteen-year-old Cam Scott is angry. He's angry about his absent dad, he's angry about being angry, and he's angry that he has had to give up his Ottawa basketball team to follow his mom to her new job in Vientiane, Laos. However, Cam's anger begins to melt under the Southeast Asian sun as he finds friendship with his neighbour, Somchai, and gradually falls in love with Nok, who teaches him about building merit, or karma, by doing good deeds, such as purchasing caged merit birds.

Tragedy strikes and Cam finds himself falsely accused of a crime. His freedom depends on a person he's never met. A person who knows that the only way to restore his merit is to confess. "The Merit Birds" blends action, suspense, and humour in a far-off land where things seem so different, yet deep down are so much the same.

The Merit Birds

Describes the changes in society over 600 years as Lan Xang was gradually dismembered and became a French colony. Most importantly, it shows the essence of the Lao and why, despite all that has happened, they possess their own social and cultural values that mark them as distinctive.

The Kingdoms of Laos

Laos - the Lao People's Democratic Republic - is one of the least understood and studied countries of Asia. Its development trajectory is also one of the most interesting, as it moves from state, or perhaps more appropriately subsistence, to market. Based on extensive original research, this book assesses how economic transition and marketisation are being translated into progress (or not) at the local level, and at the resulting impact on poverty, inequality and livelihoods. It concludes that the process of transition in fact contributes to the growth of poverty for some people, and shows how people manage to cope in very unfavourable circumstances.

Laos

A Short History Of Laos: The Land In Between

Grant Evans

Thirty-Three Teeth (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #2)

Colin Cotterill

Disco For The Departed (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #3)

Colin Cotterill

One Foot in Laos

Dervla Murphy

A Short History Of Laos: The Land In Between

Grant Evans

The Coroner's Lunch (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #1)

Colin Cotterill

Ant Egg Soup: The Adventures of a Food Tourist in Laos

Natacha Du Pont de Bie

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

Anne Fadiman

Love Began in Laos: The Story of an Extraordinary Life

Penelope Khounta

Bamboo Palace: Discovering the Lost Dynasty of Laos

Christopher Kremmer

A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam

Norman Lewis

Lost in Yaba: Down and Out in Laos

Walt Gleeson

Lao for Beginners: An Introduction to the Spoken and Written Language of Laos

Tatsuo Hoshino

The Worst Motorcycle in Laos: Rough Travels in Asia

Chris Tharp

Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992

Jane Hamilton-Merritt

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)

Maggie Stiefvater

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #7)

Colin Cotterill

Six and a Half Deadly Sins (Dr. Siri Paiboun #10)

Colin Cotterill

The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong

Edward Gargan

The Merry Misogynist (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #6)

Colin Cotterill

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir

Kao Kalia Yang

The Last Century Of Lao Royalty: A Documentary History

Grant Evans

The Politics Of Ritual And Remembrance: Laos Since 1975

Grant Evans

Lao Peasants Under Socialism

Grant Evans

I Shot the Buddha (Dr. Siri Paiboun #11)

Colin Cotterill

Historical Dictionary Of Laos (Second Edition)

Martin Stuart-Fox

Slash and Burn (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #8)

Colin Cotterill

The Merit Birds

Kelley Powell

The Kingdoms of Laos

Peter Simms

Lost in Yaba: Down and Out in Laos

Walt Gleeson

Living with Transition in Laos: Market Intergration in Southeast Asia

Jonathan Rigg