It's a Small World After All

I'm still in the midst of planning my world tour over the next two years. Tonight's focus is southeast Asia. The main thing I want to see, as mentioned, is Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The tours I'm considering typically start in Bangkok and finish in Ho Chi Minh City or vice versa and cruise through Cambodia en route. I'm suddenly possessed with an urgent desire to visit Laos while I'm in the region, even though I don't know anything about Laos except that the Asian family on King of the Hill is from there, but if I don't go there while I'm over in the area, I am going to die. And staying alive is apparently going to cost me some coin because the apparent monopolists at Thai Air charge over $400 for the flight between Bangkok and Vientiane. This flight only takes a little over an hour. What the hell? I just want to go pump some money into the Laotian economy. Why can't they make this easy for me? Damn.