I am writing from Luang Prabang, which, as my friend Greg says, sounds like magic words, as in,

"Copperfield covered his outstretched hat with a handkerchief, said the magic words 'Luang Prabang' and, poof, disappeared, leaving only his hat."

Luang Prabang IS magic. Nestled between the Khan and Mekong Rivers in north-central Laos, it is a gentle, sun-drenched place, with old, squat French buildings and slender teenaged Buddhist monks in orange robes.
My friend Susanna, who's visiting from New York, and I had lunch today at an outdoor cafe overlooking the river. There were some terraced farms on the far side, and two little girls fording the river. One of them had a silver mylar balloon that she lost hold of; fortunately, it didn't have enough air to float away, but unfortunately, it was swept downstream on the current. She bailed in after it, and sure enough, in about three seconds both little girls were swimming like otters, drenched and squealing.

We came up yesterday from a border town in northern Thailand. Since Luang Prabang is truly in the middle of nowhere -- bordered by Myanmar, southern China, and northern Vietnam, all places that aren't exactly world hubs [on a side note, the Bangkok Airport may be closing for repairs, and Susanna, worried about her return trip, and I tried to make contingency plans. It's pretty bad when your plan B is an international flight from Burma.] -- it's expensive to reach by air, far and somewhat treacherous by road, but accessible and pleasant to reach by boat, as long as you don't mind a long day on the Mekong. A long day on the Mekong! Although I can see that might not be appealing if one is engaged in a land war in Asia, to Susanna and me it sounded charming. We left at dawn, picking our way through fog-shrouded roads in a mini van, with a pink almost-Vermont light on the hills, shivered for thirty minutes at the border (the Lao and Hmong wear fur lined hats, hand-woven scarves, and Western t-shirts; they look like every hipster kid at NYU, only with soft, broad faces, the old people's worn smooth like pennies), then climbed onto a covered wooden boat about 100 feet long with seats that looked like they'd been retrieved from a defunct airplane. Apparently concerned we would starve, Susanna and I had brought a grocery bag of cashews, Thai fruits, granola bars, pretzels, and Pringles, and we spent most of the dribbling crumbs down the front of our shirts while we read. At sunset we had a Beerlao and watched the fishermen pull up their nets from the banks. Not much is happening along the Mekong in Laos, save for the fishermen, some bathers, and a few naked kids; is it CCR that points out that life on a river is the same everywhere? The most remarkable thing is really how peaceful it is, with clean air tinted by the smell of harvest fires, and shifting sand banks, and soft pock-marked rocks, and some sort of Lao cow grazing in the woodlands. (Our guide helpfully told Susanna, "Cows eat grass." "I guess it's hard to gauge foreigners' knowledge," Susanna reflected afterward. "I mean, if I don't even know how to say 'hello,' it's possible I don't know cows eat grass.")

Now we are enjoying a few days in town, eating French pastries for breakfast and Lao catfish salads for lunch. Tomorrow we'll rent bikes and try to find a waterfall. What a miracle to be so far from anywhere and yet feel so much at home.