In the oppressive, tropical heat of mid-morning in Northern Laos, it was a relief when the boat touched the bank. I had travelled up the Mekong River in the province of Luang Prabang with two Lao guides and before us now were the Pak Ou grottoes. We climbed a flight of steps etched into the sheer limestone cliffs over the Mekong to enter Tam Ting cave. The shrine here was packed with Buddha statues of every conceivable size and shape; some, it was said, dated back to the reign of King Sulinya Vongsa in the late 17th century, the golden age when Laos was called "Lane Xang" (the Kingdom of a Million Elephants).
From Tam Ting's gaping maw, I could look down the Mekong river, the world's 12th longest river the 10th largest in terms of volume. It ranks with the Amazon, the Nile and the Ganges as one of the great arteries of the continents. Rising in snowy Tibet, it bends through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia before spreading out in a great fan-like delta in southern Vietnam, scattering particles of the Himalayas in the South China Sea.
Marco Polo
It is thought that Marco Polo, on his way to Peking, was the first European to cross the Mekong in the 13th century. The Dutch merchant Gerard Van Wuystoff reached Vientiane, the modern Lao capital, in the 17th century. When France colonised Laos in 1893, the Treaty of Bangkok signed with the King of Siam (Thailand) established the river as the eastern border of French IndoChina. Later that day we continued further upriver to a little village on one of the tributaries of the Nam Khan and reached the tomb of the French explorer Henri Mouhot. It was he, slashing through the jungles of northern Cambodia in the 1860s, who chanced upon the long-abandoned temple complex of Angkor Wat, its galleries and stone faces overgrown by creepers and tree trunks. Mouhot died of malaria a few months later in Luang Prabang. One of the last entries in his diary reads: "Oh my God . . . have mercy on me." According to legend, his faithful dog TinTine was seen howling on his grave afterwards. Luang Prabang was and is a place unbuffetted by the Vietnam War, communist rule and mass tourism. With talk of a highway being built early in the next century from Bangkok to southern China via Laos, there is the alarming prospect that Luang Prabang could become just another tourist and trucking stop-over. In 1995, however, UNESCO awarded its capital World Heritage status as the best preserved city in Southeast Asia.
My stay coincided with a parade to celebrate a plaque being handed over by UNESCO Director-General Frederico Major, who had flown in that day. Accordingly, a cluster of balloons was released at Nam Phou fountain and a procession of hundreds of Laotians, dolled up in the traditional costumes of the lowland Buddhists and the animist hilltribes began. It was as if the cast of The King and I had descended on a town whose clocked had stopped ticking in the 1920s.
Gilded spires
All along the route, the gilded spires of temple after temple sprouted above the coconut trees. This town, tucked away in the mountains, once boasted 65 temples; war and invasion have reduced this number to 30. The most important sanctuary is Wat Xieng Thong, with a multi-layered roof, walls embellished with gold motifs, and inside, a huge Bronze Buddha. The English travel writer Norman Lewis visited Luang Prabang in 1950 and described it as "a tiny Manhattan, but a Manhattan with holy men in yellow robes in its avenues, with pariah dogs, and garlanded pedi-cabs carrying somnolent Frenchmen nowhere, and doves in its sky. Down at the lower tip, where Wall Street should have been, was a great congestion of monastries . . .' When I reached Wat Xieng Thong, the crowd had already dispersed. Frederico Major had already ceremoniously handed over a World Heritage Plaque to the Lao minister of culture and it was stocked inside the temple. Apart from its spinning fans, it is a capsule of the 16th century. But there were enough sunburnt, T-shirted Westerners with camcorders and cameras - myself included - to taint the allure of the scene.
Mekong bridge Tourism is planned as a major plank of Chan Thanakaan Mai, the Laotian glasnost. In 1994, the first bridge to span the Mekong was opened, linking the capital with Nong Khoi in Thailand. It is officially called the Mittahaap (Friendship) Bridge, but some Laotian cynics have dubbed it the "AIDS Bridge", fearful that the debauched ways of Bangkok-after-dark will migrate east.
Whatever happens, that eternal river is being tamed. When French explorers like Henri Mouhout navigated its length a century ago, it snaked through miles of unexplored jungle. Vegetation-choked ruins, brushed by the monsoon rains, made Indo-China the last true El Dorado. Now the thirst for hydro-electricity, timber and tourists is erasing its primeval wildness. On that boat trip a few weeks ago, I saw a world whose days are probably numbered.