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July 6, 1999 | Though technically communist for the past quarter-century, Laos has never really elicited Reaganesque notions of an Evil Empire.

Perhaps this is because, unlike China or Vietnam, Laos has never produced a marquee-level revolutionary (Chairman Mao and Uncle Ho had names as simple and direct as social-realist art; Kaysone Phomivane -- the communist hero of Laos -- sounds like the name for an experimental blood-pressure medication). Or maybe it's because one cannot imagine Lao soldiers arming Angolan rebels, training assassins in Madagascar or crowding into amphibious landing craft off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Actually, for your average American, it's hard to imagine Lao soldiers, period.

Thus, I wasn't sure what to think when in the midst of my third week of traveling down the Mekong River, a couple of Lao soldiers rousted me out of my sleeping bag at gunpoint and marched me up the sandbar to what remained of the night's campfire. Chris and Robert, the Americans who had masterminded this Mekong adventure, were already sitting there, smirking at me expectantly. Since I was in possession of our only Lao phrasebook, I knew what those smirks meant: I would have to do the talking.

Forcing a casual grin (the international symbol for "Please don't shoot me"), I dug out the phrasebook and started to flip through the pages. The soldiers awaited my explanation in silence.

"Nak thawng thiaw," I said finally. "We are tourists."

This sent the younger soldier (who'd obviously downed a bit of rice whiskey before he showed up) into an animated rage, yelling and wildly gesturing at the boat where I'd just been sleeping. I didn't understand a single thing he said, but I got the point. No doubt, the spectacle of Americans piloting a secondhand teakwood boat down the Mekong River must have seemed absurdly suspicious. Imagine a gaggle of Laotians blissfully riding Shetland ponies down the New Jersey Turnpike, and you get a vague idea of what it must have been like for him.

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It took 15 minutes with the phrasebook -- plus a half-dozen cigarettes and an entire package of sugar cookies (our treat) -- before the soldiers finally gave up on us and trudged back up the riverbank into the jungle.

This came as a huge relief, since even in English I would have had a difficult time fully explaining the strange combination of circumstances that had brought me to that sandy stretch of the Mekong 100 miles east of Vientiane.

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It's quite possible that I'm the only person who has ever been inspired to travel the Mekong River after having read Mark Twain.

In "Life on the Mississippi," which I purchased on a whim in Thailand, Twain examines a bygone time on the river that shaped his youth. Humorously comparing America's then hell-bent railroad expansion to the glamorous steamboating days of the past, Twain reveals just how quickly technology can change the mood and attitude of a culture.

As I read this, I was taken by just how much the Mississippi River of the 1880s had in common with the Mekong River of today. Like Twain's Mississippi, the Laotian Mekong is a dividing line, the gateway to a wild and undeveloped frontier. Like Twain's Mississippi, life on the Laotian Mekong is just now being affected by telecommunications, land transport and electricity. Like Twain's Mississippi, life on the Laotian Mekong is just now beginning to forget its civil-war past in favor of a more prosperous and dynamic future. Like Twain's Mississippi, life on the Laotian Mekong is about to change forever.

I went to Laos hoping to catch a glimpse of a lifestyle that will soon be confined to history.

That, and the fact that -- like countless other American males who went through adolescence in the movie culture of the 1980s -- I grew up with the notion that traveling the Mekong would be as wonderfully exotic as traveling the desert planet of Tatooine, or the Temple of Doom.

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Until quite recently, Laos was, like Bhutan or North Korea, strictly off-limits to adventure travelers. Granted, foreigners have been visiting Laos in small numbers since the early '90s, but they were generally confined to government-monitored package tours and had to apply for permission to visit the more isolated regions of the country. This all changed early this year, when -- in an effort to attract hard currency and open up to the Western world -- Vientiane revoked longtime travel restrictions as part of its 1999 "Visit Laos Year" campaign.

Somehow I doubt this campaign was created to allow foreigners to buy fishing boats and travel 800 miles down the Mekong, but that's OK. That wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I arrived anyhow.

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