ABSTRACT
In March 1990 HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, daughter of the King of Thailand, made a state visit to the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Her visit, and the account she wrote of her visit, represents, I will argue in this chapter1, a major break with the colonial view ofLaos and the Lao that has dominated Sianlese thought since at least the early part of the nineteenth century. In that view, the Lao have been seen as needful of the civilizing influences the Siamese can provide; Lao should, nloreover, be rightfully under Siamese domination. It follows from the Sianlese perspective that any clainl by the Lao to belonging to a separate nation living in a state independent of Thailand can be only a spurious claim.
