More often than not, the things we hear are wildly contradictory. One day someone tells us to avoid a city at all costs, that its people are mean, its smells smelly, and its hotels expensive. The next day a different traveller tells us it is the best place he has ever been, that he's going back and that he intends to move there and marry a local because it -- and she -- are so beautiful and hospitable. We have learned to take all this advice along with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Despite this, there are two things we keep hearing on which all travellers agree. The first is that trekking in Nepal is the hardest but most rewarding experience you could ever have. The second is that Laos is a great country to visit for a slightly more unspoiled taste of Southeast Asia, that its people are friendly, relaxed, and happy.

We met our first batch of Laos-lovers in Southwest China while we were on our Tiger Leaping Gorge trek, and for a while we considered entering Laos from Kunming and then continuing overland through Laos to Vietnam. We abandoned this idea when we realized how much time that would take and because it would require us to skip the Guilin/Yangshou area of China.

As we travlled on, Laos kept cropping up in conversations and no one had anything bad to say about it. This is extremely unusual, as most travellers devote huge portions of their time describing in great detail the miseries they have endured along the way. (Please kindly ignore the fact that I devote large sections of this website -- in fact large portions of this Dispatch, as you will see -- to doing the same.) A place that whiny travellers like myself don't even complain about must be really special.

By the time we reached Hanoi we had decided to do Laos. We would carve a few days out of the end of our Vietnam leg, and a few days out of the start of Thailand, and we would take a week or so to discover this relatively undiscovered corner of Asia.

Laos is a land-locked country, circled by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar. It is sparsely populated. The north is mountanous, the south flatter, and politically it has followed a similar history to Vietnam: monarchy, French colonization, independence, civil war, communist since 1975.

Compliments of the USA, Laos earned the unhappy distinction of being the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the history of the world. Between direct bombing of North Vietnamese troops stationed in Laos and the practice of unloading unused bombs when returning from bombing runs over Vietnam itself, America dropped so much ordinance that it averaged out to one planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours per day, for 9 years! Amazingly, the entire operation was conducted in secret by US Air Force officers in civilian clothing, because the Geneva Accord of 1962 specifically forbade both America and North Vietnam from having a military presence in Laos.

Most of this chaos is in the past. Most of it but not all. There are a few things that make travel in Loas. . . well, interesting. Guerrillas, bandits, bombs.

A band of Hmong rebels has been fighting the communists since the 60's. They still control or at least harrass large parts of Northeast Laos and occasionally stage attacks in this area. The Lao government also warns against bandits, locals holding up buses for money, but this may just be an attempt to downplay what it actually guerrila activity by blaming it on common criminals.

The most immediate threat today, however, is from a series of bomb blasts that have rocked the capital, Vientiane. Since March 2000, approximately 35 different explosions have occurred in areas of Vientiane frequented by westerners. No one has claimed responsibility for these attacks, and they remain unsolved. We check with the US State Department and while they don't necessarily encourage travel to Laos they don't exactly tell you not to go there either. Fact is, if you travel during the day and use common sense, it is probably still safer than a weekend in Los Angeles.

We flew from Saigon to Bangkok, Thailand, and spent a day shopping, making travel arrangments, and generally enjoying the western convenience of the place. Yesterday, we took a short flight on Thai Airways (our new favorite airlines, by the way) from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, in extreme Northern Thailand. Next came a three hour local bus ride further north to Chiang Khong, a small border town.

Sarah and raced from the Chiang Rai airport to the bus station and jumped on a bus just as it was pulling away. We grabbed the last 2 available seats. They weren't even at the back. I sat next to a nice local gal, a high-school student going home for the weekend. She pointed out the window to another bus and said, "That bus fast bus to Chiang Khong."

This didn't faze me. I didn't mind saving a little money by taking the slow bus. I pointed to the floor of our bus and asked, "Cheap bus?"

She shook her head, then pointed to the other bus and said, "Cheap bus."

Oh well. No worries. Even though we were apparently on the slow, expensive bus it was a pleasant ride. We drove through farmland and small clean villages. The houses were large and well kept. Thailand was clearly more prosperous than China and Vietnam. Our fellow passengers were mainly students in the blue and white uniforms, and often we picked up young monks in their bright orange robes. We watched a beautiful sunset.

By the time we reach Chiang Khong it was dark and Sarah and I were the last two people on board. We walked through the quiet little town, enjoying the peace after the cacaphony of Saigon and Bangkok. We ate dinner on the beautiful wooden balconey of our guesthouse high on the banks of the Mekong river, staring out over the water to Laos on the other side.

The Mekong river starts somewhere up north in China. It flows generally south and east. Here it forms the border between Laos and Thailand, but just downstream it turns straight east away from the border and cuts into the heart of Laos. Our plan was to take a boat to Luang Prabang, a small relaxed town packed with temples in the mountains of central Laos.

We woke up early and a pickup from our guesthouse dropped us off at Thai customs on the banks of the river. We were there when it opened at 8:00. A large decorative gate said "Gateway to Indochina," a not-so-subtle reminder that we were leaving Thailand, a country that has never been colonized, and entering the former French colonies.

There is no bridge here, but locals are always standing by to ferry visitor across the river in long narrow boats. It was a short smooth ride and a relatively quick passage through Lao customs at Huay Xai, the town on the other side. The immigration officer had a hand-written note saying "Public holiday: pay additional fee of 2500 kip." Although this is only $.25, we assumed we were being bribed so we protested loudly and refused to pay. Then a quick look in our guidebook told us it actually was Lao National Day, so we put our tail between our legs, paid the fee, and walked on through.

Next we had to find a boat to Luang Prabang. We had two options. We could hitch a ride on a "slow boat," a large cargo hauler that takes two days to make the trip downstream. Or we could take a smaller "fast boat" that would cut the time in half. Given our time restraints we opted for the fast boat, so we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck to the fast boat landing about 5 km south of town.

The fast boat landing was not a model of operational efficiency. Outisde a dusty shack, a dozen or so Lao men -- presumably the boat drivers -- sat drinking and playing cards and checkers. Inside, an older guy sat behind a battered wooden desk that held a wrinkled booklet in which he cataloged the tickets he sold.

The boats carry 8 people, normally 6 westerners and 2 locals, but the guy refused to sell tickets until a group of exactly 6 were present. Unfortunately, a group of 6 Aussies had arrived moments before Sarah and I, so they booked as a group and we were left with no choice but to sit down in the hot sun and wait.

An hour went by. Nothing. More checkers. The sun got hotter and the guy just sat in there behind his desk.

After another half hour, three Israelis showed up. Together we tried to talk him into selling us tickets.

"No five!" he shouted, "Six!"

We waited another half hour, then two Frenchmen showed up. Finally! Enough to put us over the critical mass.

But no!

"No seven! Six!" was the booking guy's new mantra.

Even though the boats hold 8 passengers, he would only allow 6 westerners on board. The late coming Frenchmen didn't want to split up (wisely, since the one left behind we probably be stuck there for the night), so we were still at square one, either a group of 5 of 7.

After letting us roast in the sun for a while, the booking guy approached.

He announced that he would happily put all 7 of us in a boat if we paid the full price of 1000 Baht each, but that if we wanted to go as a group of 5 he would charge us for 6 people (6000 Baht) since a seat would be wasted. Basically, he was charging us by the person in one case, and by the boat in the other.

At this point Sarah and I were ready to give in, split the extra $25 amongst the 5 passengers, and get out of there. But the Isrealis were outraged.

"Absolutely not," they yelled. "No way!"

Without the Isrealis we couldn't go anyway, so Sarah and I joined their protest. Booking guy said that he just couldn't possibly send a boat with only 5 of us and that we would just have to wait for another solo western traveler to arrive.

We said OK, called his bluff, and went to sit in the hot sun.

Again, nothing happened for about half an hour. It was like that scene in Bridge Over the River Kwai where the camp commandant hopes to sweat out the British POW's one by one. But we didn't break (at least the Isrealis didn't) so we all just sat there.

When booking guy finally realized that we would happily sit there and out-wait him all day, he decided not to rip us off, not to kiss his 5000 Baht goodbye, and he sold us 5 tickets at the regular price. We had won! Little did we know the hard part was yet to come.

We grabbed our bags and skidded down the eroded soil cliff-face to the water's edge, about 40 feet below. Our boat bobbed in the current, a few feet off shore.

The boat was roughly the size of a canoe. Its bow came to a sharp wedge that rose up out of the water, and its stern was cut straight across. The sides were painted bright streaks of color, sort of 60's psychedelic meets 70's Evil Kneival. The top was open and there weren't seats, just flat cushions on the floor. We hardly noticed any of that though, because we were too busy staring open-jawed at the boat's main feature -- its motor.

This wasn't your basic outboard fishing motor. It wasn't even a 180 horse power water ski machine. It was a shiny, new, fully exposed, 16 valve, Toyota car engine with a giant exhaust pipe. A 12 foot long rod extended straight back out of the motor into the water, and at the end of the rod was an impossibly small propeller, roughly the size and shape of a bowtie. The whole thing -- motor, rod, exhaust pipe, bowtie -- was mounted a big swivelling system and the driver steered by hauling on a metal pipe that had been welded to the front of the motor.

They piled our bags into the tiny point of the bow, then motioned for us to board. The boat was just wide enough to barely fit 2 people side by side, so we sat in 3 narrow rows. The space for each of us was to tiny, it required a complex series of yoga-like moves to park our various body parts aboard. You could approximate the comfort level by sitting on the floor, drawing your knees up to your chest, bear-hugging them to remove any pesky wasted space, and then sitting there for eight hours.

Just to add to the discomfort, they supplied us with helmets. Turns out a tourist died recently, so the government made the drivers give out life jackets and helmets. My helmet happened to be a cheap styrofoam thing, sort of a stage prop version of real helmet. Sarah's was missing the chinstrap. We would have been better off strapping $2 beer coolers from Safeway to our heads.

Things got worse when he started the engine. It was loud, defeaningly loud. Then it got louder. The higher he revved, the louder it got. It was a fully exposed car engine without a muffler and it was open full throttle and it was a yard or so behind our ears. It was Indy car loud. It was jet airplane at takeoff loud. It was a relentless scream hour after hour.

The lightness of a boat and the bigness of the engine made for a fast ride. Sarah and I guessed we were flying somewhere between 45-55 miles per hour. That's not fast when you are in a beefy USDA choice American SUV, but when you are tucked into a whisperlite boat rocketing through rapids on a twisty river it is far, far too fast.

Conversation, reading, or movement of any kind was impossible so we spent the day looking at the scenery, which was spectacular. For hours we saw nothing but forested mountains. Occasionally we would pass a boat or a small hut on the shore, but mainly we were alone with the jungle and the river. At one point, we pulled over to the shore and two native women appeared out of nowhere wearing baskets on their backs. Each basket held a small, very dead deer that they loaded into our boat.

We stopped briefly for lunch at the halfway point, and here we switched drivers. Our new driver made us appreciate our old driver. The second half of our drive, which should have taken 3 hours, tooks 5. First, he stopped to help his buddy work on another boat. We sat by, not knowing how long we would be waiting, while he joked and smoked and tinkered with his friend. We made a whole bunch of stops that seemed to be a series of errands for our driver. The kicker, though, came in the last stretch when we ran out of gas not just once, nor twice, but FOUR times! We would come to a dead stop in the middle of the river. Our driver was surpirsed each and every time. We would wait, floating in the current. Eventually another boat would come, we would siphon a little gas from their tank, and continue on our way.

Joseph Cambell, the famous scholar of world mythology, says that a common theme in the human experience is the following:

"At the bottom of the deepest abyss, therein lies salvation."