Laos is an interesting place. It's reputedly as poor as Cambodia, if not more poor, but signs of collective wealth are everywhere. Unlike in Cambodia, the major roads are all sealed. Again unlike Cambodia, heavy industrial and farming machinery is ubiquitous. Each village has its own sign in Lao and in English, and the little stalls on the side of the street are very well stocked.
That said, on the individual level, the Laotian people are dirt poor. They largely live in ramshackle wooden and corrugated metal shacks, and are engaged in the same subsistence-plus farming lifestyle as the Cambodians. It just seems that on the collective level, money is actually used for infrastructure projects -- where in Cambodia, the vast majority of funds coming in, at any level, are skimmed by government officials.
