Word: lao
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Kerry and Kay Danes' small world is defined by heat and separation. At seven o'clock in the morning, guards rouse them from their stifling communal cells and lead them and their fellow inmates into the dusty exercise yard of a Lao prison. Forbidden to speak to each other, the Danes communicate in stolen glances and occasional whispered words. This is not the way their new life was supposed to work out. Moving from Australia to Vientiane with their three young children, aged seven to 15, was to be an exotic adventure in a city of decaying French colonial mansions...
...idyll ended abruptly last Dec. 23, the day Lao secret police entered Kerry's office and arrested him. A half hour later, as his wife attempted to walk into Thailand across the Friendship Bridge with her savings of about $50,000 stashed in her dirty laundry, Kay was taken into custody, while two of her children stood helplessly by. The family had become a casualty in a war they didn't even know they were fighting...
...border post exudes an air of the illicit?a battered desk, a netted bed and a rack of rusting AK-47s cram a one-room shack. The Cambodian guard may ask for a $5 "gift" to expedite the paperwork: refuse only if you have plenty of time. The Lao post is on the opposite bank. The official there will also ask for a tip and may invite you to get drunk but it's best to beg off, as your next halt, Don Khon, is still a 20-minute boat ride away...
This jewel of an islet, known to the French as "the Tahiti of Laos," is a perfect rest stop. Flanking it are waterfalls, including Khon Falls?the largest in Southeast Asia?marking the start of an unnavigable stretch. On arrival, follow an old railway track to the main village. A French hospital has been converted into the fine Auberge Done Khone ($14-$22 a room), great for a cold beer and a stunning sunset. If you must have air-conditioned accommodation, an hour upstream by canoe is the island of Don Khong. There a French colonial house with a spacious...
Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived and wrote 2,500 years ago--around the same time as Confucius, Lao Tzu and the Buddha--is best known as the man who said you cannot put your foot into the same river twice...