From the Annals of the Ministry of Poor Planning

Front page news I thought I'd share. From the Vientiane Times.

"Last weekend Chanthabouli district officially opened Don Chan Island so that the public could enjoy a weekend at the beach and celebrate Lao New Year, April 14-16.

A bamboo bridge across the Mekong River to the sandbank had been erected, but as soon as it was finished, the water level rose and the small bridge is now submerged, which the district authorities are dealing with..."

(ed. note: Don Chan is a large island in the mekong in Vientiane that gets much larger during the dry season, exposing large sand bars that people use to fish from, play soccer on, and generally treat as a beach)

The story reminded me of what happened in St. Petersburg, Russia when I first got there in the Fall of 1992.

The main drag, Nevsky Prospect, was painted one day. Center lines, parking spot lines, all very nice. The next week, the road was repaved, and the lines were never repainted. So my guess is that the city administration said, what the heck, we have the paint and the painters now, and the pavers aren't coming until next week. Let's put the painters to work now.

I think maybe the same decision making process was employed here. In this instance, they probably had the bamboo and the construction crew, and the day they built the bridge the water was at level X. Never mind that every year the water level fluctuates between level Y and level Z, we're building today and today the water is at level X. Foresight seems to be a luxury they can't afford.

Which brings me to the Don Chan Palace Hotel, billed as "Laos' only 5-star hotel". Maybe that's true, I don't know. But what I do know is that it is a 14-story monstrosity, which doesn't really fit in with the riverfront landscape. It was built in 10 months by a chinese construction company for an unknown (to me at least) Malaysian investor. What I also know, because everyone talks about it, is that the Don Chan Palace Hotel, Laos' only 5-star hotel, is built in a location that was severely flooded just 2 years ago, and regularly floods during the rainy season. But hey, it wasn't flooded when they picked the site, so there you go. But I'll put money down that sooner or later (and probably sooner) we'll be reading on the front page of the Vientiane Times that

"...the water level rose and the bottom two floors of the Don Chan Palace, Laos' only 5-star hotel, are now flooded."

And, given that the hotel is built on what is basically a sand bar in a relatively fast moving river, we'll probably be reading that

"...The Don Chan Palace, Laos' only 5-star hotel, fell over into the Mekong River today. Quick thinking locals siezed on the opportunity to use the now horizontal 5 star hotel, complete with 3 restaurants, a nightclub, a spa, and conference center, as a bridge to the sandbank, as the new bamboo bridge that city officials built for that purpose is now submerged."