DAY 413: Sue, the woman of the Phonethip Guesthouse in Pak Beng, was making the sandwiches we pre-ordered the night before, so that we could bring them on our long slow boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. "You want banana? Buy from me! Ha ha!" she said in her thick Laotian accent with perhaps a bit too much energy for 7:30 in the morning.

"No, that's okay."

"You want pineapple? Very good. Buy from me, buy from me! Cheap cheap, ha ha!"

Her daughter (I assumed) Ponti wasn't nearly as high energy as Sue that morning as she sat nearby to see the latest round of nightly guests. "You look very handsome," she said.

"Thank you," I said.

Meanwhile, Markus was buying a piece of cake from Sue since he'd been around the block and saw the same things elsewhere. "Same same. Very good! You buy from me! Ha ha!"

JUST LIKE THE DAY BEFORE, it took over an hour for the slow boat to depart after we had all boarded and settled in. While waiting I made friends with Patty, the Canadian woman sitting next to me. "I'm from Saskatchewan," she said. "Tell me you've been there and you'll make me happy."

"No, no," I said. "But I have heard of it."

"That's a step in the right direction," Patty said. "And you?"

"New York. Tell me you've heard of it."

Behind her in the bench next to Huyb was her husband Larry, an American originally from Chicago who had a long ZZ Top beard with the ends braided. He was a scientist who had worked and lived in Japan for quite a while, which was where he met Patty. Both of them had an extensive travel history together ever since -- mostly off the beaten path, sometimes with just bicycles -- and Larry said he had been gone from the States long enough that he no longer had the American accent he came to find so annoying. "I really have a problem with American vowels," he said. "In the States it's A-E-I-O-U. Everywhere else it's ah-eh-ee-oh-oo." He continued by saying that no one but Americans had that piercing long "A" sound.

"Oh, like hamburger," I said in my best American accent. I had to agree with him on his point; I remember being really embarrassed in Cerbere in southwestern France, waiting at the train station for the overnighter to Paris, overhearing two American valley girl-types (most likely right out of high school) ordering two chicken sandwiches from the station cafe:

Valley Girl #1: Should we order in French?
Valley Girl #2: Oh wait, I can do it. (She turns to the Frenchman, and holds up two fingers.) Okay, dooo poolay.
(I cringe.)

THE DAY WAS A LONG ONE. Eight hours on a slow boat down the Mekong. Whenever a speedboat whizzed by there was a mixed feeling of jealousy and remorse. Larry and Patty had been on a speed boat down the Mekong before and Larry said it was like when Han Solo made the jump to hyperspace; the river looks completely still and the scenery just whizzes by. He thought it was pretty cool while his wife was pretty terrified by it.

We passed the time in different ways. Those with MP3 portables or Discmans used them. Others just sat around and read, wrote or slept in the cramped but bearable conditions (picture above). At sundown the boat slowed down and docked at the port of Luang Prabang, our final destination for the night. The first impressions of town was that it was a sleepy one, but in a good way, a subdued paradise of palm trees and laid-back people. Not surprisingly, when we walked into town from the riverbank, touts approached us with flyers for their guesthouses. Right away I saw the difference in Thai touts and Lao ones. Unlike Thais, the Laotians approach you with a pitch, take "no" for an answer when you decline once, and then just go on their way.

We all went our separate ways, Huyb one way, Markus another and me another. Checking out the different places, I saw that Laos was a tad bit more expensive than Thailand, with most initial quotes in the $5-$8 (USD) range, as opposed to Thailand's $2-$3. I was walking one of the streets when I was approached by one of the several touts on motor scooters, patrolling the streets for new backpacker clients wandering aimlessly in town. The guy was a friendly Lao guy named Keo and led me to his centrally-located guesthouse, with a spotless room with shared bath for $5. A bit steep I thought, but he said there was unlimited coffee and tea. "Okay, you got me," I said. I just didn't feel like looking around anymore. Later I learned that Huyb paid $8 for a place with roaches and Markus paid $6 for a place with free bananas. Supposedly the prices were higher because everyone was trying to play catch-up from the lull in tourism from the week-long border closure instated as a security measure for some national conference in the capital city of Vientiane.

LUANG PRABANG WAS ONCE THE CAPTIAL CITY of Lane Xang, the "Kingdom of a Million Elephants" of the 14th to 17th centuries. Luckily for Luang Prabangers, the capital was moved to Vientiane in 1556, leaving most of the town untainted from industrialization; it's charm and remaining historical sites earned it the recognition as a World Heritage city by UNESCO.

This isn't to say Luang Prabang wasn't influenced by outsiders. Laos, which was once a Thai territory, was given up by the king of Thailand in a treaty when the French were expanding their Indochina territories from what is now Vietnam. With that said, my pre-conceived notion of Lao cuisine was that it would be a lot like Thai with perhaps a French flair, but I saw that Laos boasted a unique cuisine that set itself apart from its neighboring countries or France.

I had my first real Lao meal at the place Let's Go highly-recommended, the Indochina Spirit Restaurant, known for its international and Lao menu. The place was a lot swankier than I thought it'd be, with nice furniture, candles and a live band in the corner playing the traditional Lao sounds of drums and a xylophone. The clientele was primarily older tourists in package groups, but more importantly there were many locals dining there too, although I guess I can't assume that every dark-skinned, Asian-faced person was an official Laotian. With me was Markus, the straight-edged German who had an epiphany that afternoon staring out on the river; all his life had been spent trying to get rich quick and it dawned on him that perhaps you didn't need a lot of money to have a fulfilling life, especially traveling in southeast Asia.

For my introduction into Lao cuisine, I ordered the "Lao Plate," a sampler of the different unique dishes: chai pen (Mekong seaweed, dried and seeded), sai ua (Lao sausage), gaeng som pa (fish soup), kau niau (sticky rice), and my favorite, ua no mai sai muu (deep fried bamboo shoots stuffed with ground pork). I washed it down with sweet Lao rice wine.

FAMILIAR FACES GREETED AND SMILED AT US as Markus and I walked the afternoon-turned-night market on the main strip. I recommended the Indochina Spirit restaurant to Larry, who loved going out to restaurants, but ignored the part about us sitting next to a table with three Americans with their piercing accentuation of American vowels. Markus kept on bumping into people he'd met in Thailand and in the end we bumped into Huyb at a bar. With him was another German also named Markus, who looked like actor John Malcovich. He laughed every time I pronounced "Ulm" in my pseudo-German accent.

"Say it again."

"Ulm."

"Ha ha! Next time I need a stand-up comedian, I'll call you."

Hmm, which is worse, the American accent, or the American accent trying to emulate other accents?

Three young Austrians that Huyb met joined us and our first real night in Laos was a casual night of Beerlao and soccer on TV. The bar closed at 10:30, but the owners let us stay an extra half hour while giving us subtle hints to leave: by putting up all the chairs, taking our empty glasses away, and ultimately, turning off all but one light. Outside in the streets, the busy night market had already disappeared, leaving nothing but a deserted sleepy town road.

Luang Prabang wasn't big in terms of nightlife, but at least wandering an empty street was better than being cramped on a slow boat all day.

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