It’s still a terrific country for tourists. Laotians are chatty and relaxed, with neither the rapacity of the Vietnamese nor the trip-wire tempers of the Cambodians. Perhaps inspired by the American journalist Bob Woodward, Kremmer claims to have extracted the fatal details from a Pathet Lao cadre during a fantastic meeting deep in the heart of the Lao gulag. For anyone familiar with Laos, the telecommunications and logistics required for such a meeting are inconceivable.