Have you seen the Anthony Bourdain episode on Burma/Myanmar? His new show on CNN, Parts Unknown, premiered last month with an excellent episode on the country, and you should definitely watch that. (Edit: Not sure if it's available from Canadian IP addresses, but, at least in the US, you can see it for free on the CNN site:
http://www.cnn.com/video/shows/antho...#autoplay=true )
He also did an episode of No Reservations on Laos, but it's several years old now. Still, for a dollar download on iTunes, it's worth watching to give you a sense of the history and stir up some anti-Americanism before you go. The Plain of Jars looks kind of cool too.
Also, I can't help you on the dilema of what to call Myanmar/Burma as the preference seems to vary from person to person, but I can at least clarify the Lao/Laos confusion since I notice that I was calling it Lao in the other thread. That's not technically wrong, but it's pretty obnoxious now that I think about it. It's Laos in English and Lao in the native tongue, so you can call it Lao when you're over there, but calling it Lao when you come back would be like telling people about your trip to "Italia."