This isn’t Paris, France but Luang Prabang, Laos. Short baguettes can be seen everywhere, hundreds of them neatly piled up on tables in the many food stalls of the daily night market, crispy baguettes you couldn’t find any more delicious in French places. It is one of the many signs of French influence from many years ago. There are street names with Laos and French writing, posters and signs in both languages.

   Travel guides and travel reports make out Luang Prabang as the city time forgot, a United Nations heritage place much like Thailand was 50 or so years ago, not yet discovered by throngs of foreign tourists. It was inaccessible for a long time, the Shangri-La of Asia, because of the steep mountains surrounding it until a road and an airport had been built linking it to the outside world. We expected this quaint laid-back city with little traffic and not much technology but ended up quite disappointed. Hundreds of tourists, many of them French, Japanese or German, could be found everywhere, internet shops lined the main road, and traffic was polluting the air. The tuktuks seemed a bit antiquated, though. They were noisy converted motorcycles with a low-roofed box behind them. It was slanted downwards toward the rear making getting in and sitting on the short benches quite a challenge, especially for me. The first time I twisted my foot but then I learned to sit down first and then to swing my legs around into the box., We took a daylong tour around the area with a one hour lunch break at a nice restaurant overlooking one of the two rivers which join in Luang Prabang, the Mekong and Nam Kham. A lonely fisherman on a sandbank below was casting his net; a farmer on a slope across was tending one of the many vegetable fields. Some temples were in poor repair, a Buddha statue which could have used a good touch-up,

   In the morning shortly after six a.m. we watched the long lines of Buddhist monks in saffron robes walking through the street carrying alms bowls, a picture very familiar from Thailand. Lao women were kneeling on spread-out straw mats passing out food and in return receiving blessings from the monks given with quiet voices. We spent much of the late afternoon walking through the - what seemed to me - mile long night market. Most of the vendors were Hmong selling colorful fabrics, bags and various artifacts. We bought a few items, a bedspread, a tee shirt. Carol found some nice shirts and had appliqués with native designs sown on for almost nothing by an older Hmong woman.

   We returned to Chiangmai the next day on a Lao Air propeller plane. Passport control reminded us that this was a communist country, the People’s Republic of Laos. Four officers sat behind the two windows in full uniform. I took a quick photo worrying my camera or at least the memory chip might get confiscated. The steep steps up to the airplane and the short hand rail were rather difficult for me and I slipped almost losing my balance. Fortunately, Carol was right behind me helping me regain my balance. I decided that propeller planes were no longer on my list for traveling anywhere. It was good to be back in Chiangmai and it will be even better when we finally return back home to our house in Colorado. This year’s trip to Southeast Asia was once again a wonderful experience in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles we encountered. But it will be our last trip to this area of the world - at least this is the way we feel right now.