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Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is a fading one-time French colonial outpost on a spot where a bend in the Mekong makes room for a large tear-shaped island directly opposite the centre-ville, which runs only far enough back from the riverbank to allow a few commercial streets. The new bridge to Thailand is only a short distance away. Thai-style wats and other temples, minor and major, are everywhere. Otherwise, barring the usual joint-venture hotels and such, the architecture is either Chinese-style shophouses, many of them quite elderly, or French buildings recalling the old days. The latter include the Presidential Palace, formerly the French governor’s palace, and large French villas, expropriated at Independence, but left to ruin because no new use for them, or money to maintain them, could be found. They stand in overgrown lawns, their windows shuttered or punched out.

The most bizarre architectural remembrance of the French century is the Patuxai, or Victory Gate, a miniature copy of the Arc de Triomphe, sort of, but with enormous Buddhist spires on top. Such blending of French and Southeast Asian architectural styles became common in time, especially in Vietnam. This example stands at the terminus of the local equivalent of the Champs-Elysées. It is seven storeys high and contains stalls for the sale of knick-knacks. In other parts of the world, as well, the French enjoyed erecting monuments in the middle of traffic roundabouts. As I write these words, plans are afoot to rebuild the one that they put up in the middle of Rasheed Street in Baghdad, a once-grand boulevard that the American invasion turned into rubble. In Vientiane, neglect is more apparent than violence. This is not the case, however, in the more northerly part of the country.

In a sense, the Lao nation is more of a bald political construct than an organic expression of what’s nonetheless, admittedly, an interesting and vibrant culture. For century after century, its people were under the control of either the Thais (their close cousins) or the imperial Chinese. The French didn’t begin to insinuate themselves into the picture until after the Taiping Rebellion of 1845−65, instigated by a Chinese mystic named Hong Xiuquan who believed himself to be the brother of Jesus (not James, the one mentioned in the Bible — another one). He led China into the costliest civil war in world history, in which at least 20 million people were killed. After only eleven years in power, however, the rebels were driven from their capital, Nanjing, and decimated. The survivors, called Ho, dispersed into the mountainous no man’s land in southern China where, in those days, the lines on the map separating China from northern hinterlands of modern Laos and Vietnam began to blur. There the Ho lived by plundering, kidnapping, murder, and extortion. They also fought one another. This was especially the case with two factions named for the colour of their battle flags. The French, who were nosing about, looking for a lucrative route to China, knew them as Les Pavillons Jaunes and Les Pavillons Noirs. The Black Flags were arguably the more frightening of the two. They also acted as mercenaries, retained by the Vietnamese emperor Tu Doc to fight the French who were in the process of taking over Tonkin and its capital, Hanoi. By the 1870s, the Ho, operating on their own account once again, had concentrated their villainy in modern Laos, including Luang Prabang and Vientiane.

Neighbouring cultures joined in the fighting, which was sometimes conducted from atop special war elephants. The one enemy common to all parties was disease. As a Lao historian puts it, the troops “died off like leaves” due to malaria. In the end, after a series of wars lasting into the mid-1880s and a talent for diplomatic deception and manipulation, the French were in full possession of Vietnam, consolidating their control by the usual steps, as the seized territory became a protectorate (as had been the case in Cambodia) and then a full colony. This still left Laos as a more complicated problem, for it was controlled by the Thais and coveted by the ever-dangerous British, who had colonized Burma, which was right next door and bordered India.

M and I began our assigned legwork. She called at such places as the Centre de la langue française, which she reported didn’t seem especially well-used and was more or less indistinguishable from every little Alliance Française branch anywhere outside the Francophonie. She brought back the monthly programme. Language classes of course, a number of new books, and quite a few comics added to the library, the schedules of La Radio Nationale Lao (all the offerings in French) and Radio France Internationale (seven hours in French every day and one hour in Lao). Then she visited local elementary and secondary schools, where teachers told her that French was popular, but students said it wasn’t.

For my part, I was oddly curious about the Victory Gate, but everyone I asked about its history had a different set of facts to offer. So I resorted to the official guidebook of the municipality published by Inter-Lao Tourisme. For a government publication it was jarringly frank in its tone: “At the North-Eastern extremity of the Lane Xang Avenue bears a structure resembling a big exquisite monument built in the form of Paris Arc de Triomphe [but which] hardly competes with the original’s turbulent history and from a close distance, appears even less impressive, a monster of concrete.” The booklet claims that the structure was built in 1962, but I’ve seen archival photos that show it surrounded by automobiles from the 1930s or 1940s. Maybe the booklet was correct and the city was once full of ageing cars. Old postcards also reveal that the avenue encircling it was well-paved, whereas now it is macadamized only with sticky red mud or a dusty crust of reddish dirt, depending on the season.