Around Laos in 1900, Vol. 2: The 288 Photographs, A Photographer's Adventures

Around Laos in 1900, A photographer's Adventures Vol. 2 

is the compendium volume to Around Laos in 1900 which was printed without the photos. This volume contains 280 photos Raquez made during his seven months trip through Laos. Raquez travelled in Laos from 1898 – 1906.

He was the first photographer who systematically recorded in pictures the lives of the people in Laos.

Alfred Raquez's Around Laos in 1900: A Photographer's Adventures

presents information on the daily life and livelihood of various groups of people in Laos.

First published in 1902 as a travelogue of upper, central, and lower Laos, this book also serves as an assessment by a Frenchman critical of Siam's policies of relocation of villages, and of development work already undertaken by the French colonial administration.

Raquez was traveling with Colonel Tournier, the chief administrator of a recently unified Laos, and thus he was close enough to power to obtain information no other writer of the time managed to obtain. Contemporary personalities, colonial administrators, and scholars pass before Raquez's sharp eyes, as do Laotian and Siamese personalities of the time. Besides presenting a number of straightforward pro-French political considerations on the Indochinese colony and its neighbor, Siam, the book also provides a multitude of facts about Laos's natural setting, economic products, food, history, geography, legal system, customs and religions, and the lives and struggles of various highland tribes. Of particular interest is a lengthy section on the Code of Vientiane, an ancient law book unique in its documentation of crimes and punishments. Another noteworthy discussion concerns the increasing use of opium by highland peoples such as the Yao and Hmong, and the environmental destruction these tribes caused.