The lowdown on Laos

Passing the torch: Outgoing party chief Choummaly (left) giving a flower bouquet to newly-elected leader Bounnhang during the Communist Party congress in Vientiane, Laos. — EPA

Long considered a sleepy hollow of South-East Asia, land-locked Laos is slowly waking up.

WHEN Laos underwent a leadership reshuffle in January and picked Bounnhang Vorachith as the new chief of the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, it wasn’t exactly a move that rang in the changes.