Heart of Lightness

I went to Laos last autumn with my 11-year-old daughter, Leela, because of what the country and its neighbors had meant to a generation of Americans who came of age in the late ‘60s. The Vietnam War was the pivotal point of decision-making for so many of us that I wanted to see the land in the flesh.

Laos is a landlocked country surrounded by Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. The Mekong River runs through the heart of it, sustaining the rural population on its fertile floodplain. We entered Laos from northern Thailand at Huay Xai and traveled 230 miles on the Mekong to Luang Phabang, the northern provincial capital of Laos, in a riverboat painted the colors of a rooster.

When the war in Southeast Asia finally ended, Laos had the distinction of being the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. But the people we met were a generation removed from the war, and it was incredible how modest the country and the cities seemed that had been the source of such anxiety. Luang Phabang lacks even street lights and has few motorized vehicles. Instead, there are countless opulent Buddhist temples; monkeys tied to trees; gaudy silks offered by shopkeepers amused by our primitive Lao phrases; and the voices of children wafting through the windows of neocolonial schoolhouses--remnants of France’s empire-building in Indochina.

The Lao people are gentle and gracious. No one had seen a child with braces--they elbowed each other, pointed at their mouths and grinned at Leela, mistaking her orthodontia for silver-encrusted jewelry. “Leela, chao gnam lay,” they said. Leela, you are so beautiful.

With that, a generation of war and political intrigue seemed to evaporate, existing only in the memory of the slow, muddy river.