Despite being the ancient cultural capital of Laos and the former seat of its erst while monarchy, Luang Prabang is still blessedly a relatively undiscovered tourist backwater. Nevertheless, there is a hotel building boomlet going on and there are ambitious plans and lots of talk of establishing air links with touristy Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. Of course, like the Friendship Bridge linking Nong Khai and Vientiane, such plans may take years before actually being realised. Meanwhile, an adventurous traveller who wishes to go overland (i.e. by river transport) between Luang Prabang and Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province touching on the "Golden Triangle" can easily do so by travelling by boat up the Mekong, or in the opposite direction.

After having completed the five-day journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, I relax by enjoying the justly renowned cuisine of Luang Prabang which is said to be unique in all of Laos. I’m sitting in the Youngkhoune Restaurant diagonally across the street from the Rama Hotel. Although it has a menu printed half in English and a few farangs dining at fresco beside the counter stocked with rounds of Vache Qui Rit cheese and Toaves of French bread, it is filled mostly with Lao clientele and the prices seem reasonable enough. I order the house special, Luang Prabang salad and cold noodles.

While waiting for my order, I can’t help noticing a stocky young man in a crewcut sitting at the next table giving English lessons to someone dressed in a native costume and looks like he might be a uniformed doorman or receptionist in one of the tourist hotels. The tutor looks up and nods "hello". From his accent, I think he is Lao or Chinese-American (I had met several in Laos), but no, he informs me he’s Chinese from Beijing but educated in Brisbane, Australia, from whence he picked up his native-speaker’s accent. His basso profundo Rolls Royce voice would have been ideal for broadcasting career he’d trained for, but he’d wound up as a businessman exporting goods from China - although he confessed that his secret ambition was to become a pop singer. He surprised me by not asking me for an American visa, as I’d expected. However, he wanted to know why I didn’t go to China.

Before I could answer him, my order of salad and noodles arrived. So I excused myself and dug in with my chopsticks, and found that the house specialty lived up to its reputation. It’s a crunchy medley of fresh crisp watercress in a piquant dressing of oil and vinegar with sliced hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions topped with ground roasted peanuts, all of which I mix with the tepid noodles and plum tomatoes. Accompanied by crusty Frenchbread and cheese and washed down with Lao beer, it’s a refreshing repast on a hot afternoon in Luang Prabang.

When I look up again, the Chinese English teacher had already mysteriously disappeared and like the proverbial Cheshire cat, all I could recall was his warm smile. And although China was not in my present itinerary, I knew one day it would be, as the Mekong traffic between Lao and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan would someday be open to foreign tourists as well. With Luang Prabang closer to Kunming than Bangkok, I noticed on the journey from Vientiane that the predominance of Thai consumer goods was starting to give way to Chinese. In Luang Prabang’s markets one could find Chinese soaps, beer, bicycles, coloufful matchboxes, Mao caps and even American-style baseball hats (made in China, of course). I succumbed to their bargain and bought one New York Giants hat for 900 kip (less than US$1.50) which in New York would have gone for at least five or six dollars.

During the US-Vietnam War era and even before ,the northern Lao area had been known as the "China Road" as Chinese war materials were said to supply the communist Viet Cong or "Charlie" along this route which was relentlessly bombed by clandestine US air raids. One of the absurdities of the era was a gift from the then US President Richard Nixon "to the people of Laos" of a clump of useless moon rock from Apollo XVII, dated December 1972, on view at the former Royal Palace, now National Museum. The unstated irony of course is that , at the time, in fact for nine consecutive years from 1964 to 1973, the US continually "carpet-bombed" Laos, dropping more tonnage than during the entire Second World War.

Although the untrained guides at the Museum are somewhat ignorant of its contents - one insisted that a gift of a miniature Nepalese temple was "from Nippon" - the former Royal Palace Museum affords a rare glimpse into Lao culture and art treasures of the past. For the link between the past and the present, not far from the museum one can also visit the Art College where future Lao artists, artisans and sculptors are being trained in the traditional Buddhist arts and crafts under the stern and watchful eyes of Marx and Lenin glaring down from their portraits on the wall. One student hastened to cover his drawing of a pretty girl that was clearly not part of his curriculum, but seemed to afford some relief from the other strictly Buddhist designs in his sketchbook.

Despite its being the so-called "opiate of the people", Buddhism still flourishes in Luang Prabang and the visitor who would try to take in all of its numerous wats and shrines in a single day would become as bewildered as someone trying to take in all the galleries of The Louvre in the same amount of time. A week would be ideal, but as most visitors to Luang Prabang come in on fly-in, fly-our package tours, two days is all they usually have. While not on a package tour, I nevertheless had a right schedule of two days, so I just did a leisurely ramble around town with no fixed object other than the National Museum and Diethelm Travel where I would collect information on my journey upriver to Huay Xai the next day.

As in Vientiane, the articulate staff at Diethelm was very knowledgeable and helpful. Somsak (this might be spelled Somsouk) Sengta, the young man I spoke with advised me to take the ordinary (slow) boat upriver, as the speed boats were considerably risky and uncomfortable, as Somsak verified by personal experience. So, although the slow boat meant I would have to depart one day earlier than I’d planned, I opted for safety rather than speed and decided to leave the next morning.

In the evening, I went back to dine at the Youngkhoune where instead of finding the English-speaking Chinese tutor, I was surprised to meet Pierre Mainetti, the French manager of the luxury Phou Vao Hotel (where I was staying), sporting a Bahamas T-shirt and slurping a noodle soup. He said he liked to eat there for a change from the hotel and join in with his Lao friends, one of whom he introduced me to as the owner of the recently opened Luang Prabang Art Gallery.

Rather than join them at the Rama Discotheque, the only nightlife of this predominantly temple town, I walk back to the Phou Vao under the cool moonlight, and while gazing heavenwards almost literally bump into a couple of novice monks, their flaming orange robes notwithstanding. In perfect English, they introduce themselves as Novices Souk and Sai, both of Wat Xieng Mouane, and both returning from their English classes. We exchange addresses and they promise to write me.

The next morning after shopping for provisions for the journey to Hauy Xai, I again converge on the Youngkhoume for breakfast and am joined by a back-packing British couple who’d recently come overland from Vietnam and are on their way back down the Mekong. Despite the Lao government’s determination to allow in only upscale package tourists, backpackers seem to be discovering sleeping Luang Prabang’s charms. As we breakfasted on buttered baguettes and freshly brewed coffee, we couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before boutiques would line Luang Prabang’s quaint streets and its bistros serving out banana pancakes and muesli for breakfast for the farangs. And as hoteliers worry about a glut of rooms to accommodate the rising influx, now is a good time to discover Luang Prabang before it becomes irrevocably changed (and spoiled) by mass tourism.

Getting out of Luang Prabang by river transport is not as easy as getting in or out of the country. The processing at Fluvial Passenger Control could take hours and not without relieving one of the burdensome wads of Lao kip that one must carry around. However, I should mention that if you carry the most convenient Thai baht or US dollars (both universally accepted in Laos), the authorities will be only too happy to relieve you of them as well. I had to pay a US$5.00 fine for not having registered with the police upon arrival, plus another 1,000 kip just for having a business visa. This in addition to the 3,500-kip fare to Pakbeng, plus taxes. Except for the fare no receipts are issued for the fines or surcharges.

Meanwhile, a couple of American backpackers, after paying up and waiting for the boat to be filled up, got impatient, and after assessing the boat as "too crowded" decided to off-load their gear and take a speedboat instead. Perhaps, those not accustomed to the slow pace of life, will feel themselves out of place in Luang Prabang. Accustomed to furiously flicking channels after a microsecond of boredom, most of us would rather go to an artificially contrived thrill-a-minute Adventureland boat ride in Disney World than on the real thing up the Mekong which requires infinite patience.

The three-day slow boat journey to Huay Xai provided a few thrills in theme-park sense of the word, but as the hilly landscape began to resemble Chinese landscape painting (the closer we got to China) there was the same thrill of the Romantic poet such as Wordsworth experienced when he wrote about the "splendour in the grass". There was to be sure, a certain thrill in being swept against swirling milk-coffee currents past the high willowy forests of bamboo (a king of grass) which undulated in the monsoon breezes as our wooden boat chugged up the Mekong. As most of the passengers lay sprawled out napping in the hot afternoon and the cabin boys playing cards, I wrote in my journal and alternated between two long novels, "The Joy Luck Club" and "Jurassic Park". From the former I got a greater appreciation of the Oriental thinking and from the latter an appreciation that beneath the beautiful scenery, there was a fierce competition in Nature.

The boat makes many brief pit stops along the river, often being flagged down from the shore at small riverine habitations where boat is the only link to the outside world. In the evening, I’m invited to join in the simple dinner prepared by the boat crew which subsists on baskets of sticky rice rolled into balls to sop up the fish and vegetable chowder accompanied by some warming sips of locally-brewed rice wine. I decline to partake of the roasted rooster which only an hour before I had petted as it sat contentedly on my lap.

The next day, when we stop at one small village for fuelling, gathering of passengers and shopping, the local villagers, mostly hill-tribe folk dressed in black, have their "shops" spread out on plastic table cloths on the bank. The men, with long guns slung over the it shoulders, come down from the hills carrying bunches of dead squirrels. Some women offer roasted squirrels on a spit, while the youngsters stare at the farangs taking pictures. Large rodents, which look like overgrown hamsters, but I believe are called bamboo rats, are also tied around on leashes or toted in bamboo cages. One passenger buys one to take home on a leash and it comes along on the boat.

We arrive at Pakbeng around midday, and from there I change for a larger boat to Huay Xai. Even though the new boat is much larger, it seems to have fewer passengers and is almost empty, which is fine by me, as I have more room to stretch out and, unlike the previous boats, it’s tall enough to stand in without bumping my head. By now, I am getting used to the Lao diet of sticky rice plus, so I join in the crew’s meals when my own provisions are depleted - French bread lasts only so long, and I had run out of cheese.

On the third day as we stop for a police check upon entering the northern Bokeo Province, Lao’s smallest, but amazingly, home of over thirty different ethnic hill tribes, I’m tempted to join one of the docking speedboats so that I can reach Chiang Khong before the immigration closes. Once again, after the Mekong’s meanderings through Laos, Thailand is on the opposite side of the river as it nears the Golden Triangle. I negotiate with one speed boat driver who wants 100 baht for the 40-minute journey to Huny Xai which would otherwise take at least three hours by slow boat. Since it’s getting late, I pay the captain the 3,000 kip fare and transfer my gear to the waiting speedboat, already filled with passengers. In the shuffle, I forget my umbrella and towel.