As I sat in bed with my tea and toast this morning I read the news online. One article in particular caught my attention. It's about New Zealand supporting Laos in building its tourism industry. I thought this could only be a good thing as in my humble opinion, we do tourism pretty darn well.
As Laos is at the moment predominantly known as a great place to get exceptionally pissed and ride a tube down a river (possibly the stupidest idea ever) I was interested to find an article about something else. And yes, I know there's lots of other reasons some people do visit Laos - like the river boat rides, French influence in the food, the people and the history - the thought of hundreds of drunk 18 year olds on gap years drinking their way around South East Asia has so far meant that's it's not on my list of must sees.
Anyway, back to my point. I was reading this article about a site there they're making better for tourists. It's a plain full of 2000-3000 year old stone jars. That sounds pretty cool. So far they've cleared walkways through the bombs/landmines and are trying to get it listed as a World Heritage Site. They've plans to build a museum, carpark, set up accommodation in the village....these are all good things. Then I got to a word that made my hairs stick up on end. THEY ARE THINKING ABOUT BUILDING A GIANT STONE JAR. Is this the Kiwi influence? What is with us and tacky giant statues in small towns?!
It's one thing building something like this in a small town to try tempt the tourists to stop and spend a few dollars rather than roaring straight through, but surely this village and its stone jars is enough to draw in tourists without a tacky gimmick.
Rant for the day over. Now to enjoy half an hour of sunshine before heading into work.
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