Sitting in the garden at Mutmee Guesthouse I got talking to a North American, Sanchez*. I’d left Laos the previous day and had been hanging around Nong Khai since. Sanchez had been in Laos for a few years, running a restaurant and bar in Vang Vieng.

At the time, Vang Vieng was at the height of its drug and party phase. A journalist for an international …