I laughed and we sat talking for a while longer. We discussed the bombing and I asked him why he was a pilot. "I am paid like a rich man," he replied.

He changed the topic suddenly. "Do you know that the Mekong is the world's longest unbridged river?"

I looked out at the wide, muddy-red river. "Really?" I said.

"Yes," he replied. "But I expect the Americans will build a bridge one of these days. They are like that, you know."

The monsoon came while I was in Luang Prabang. One rainy night I went with a young USAID agricultural worker to try out the area's traditional specialty, opium. Laos's opium, which is legal, is reputed to be the best in the world.

The opium den was in a small bamboo shack. The interior was dark except for one lamp used for lighting the opium. Sleeping bodies lay on wooden benches along the walls. I lay down on one of the empty benches and an attendant handed me one end of a long, thin pipe. He stuffed the other end full of opium, pierced a hole in the center of it, and held it upside down over the lamp. He told me to draw as hard as I could until all the opium in the pipe was burnt up. I did this and exhaled the cool, sweetish smoke. I lay down and lazily watched my friend smoke. After each having six pipes of opium, we felt ready to leave and paid the attendant 250 kip, or about 25 cents apiece.

There is so much opium in Laos that it is not surprising that Americans have found some way to take advantage of it. Reliable reports say that pilots smuggle vast quantities to Saigon and Hong Kong in their spare time. It is also reported that pilots smuggle gold--from Vientiane to Hong Kong. The legal price differential is so great that if you buy a half-pound of gold in Laos, pay full duties on it, and sell it legally in Saigon you can pay for the round-trip airfare from Vientiane.

My last night in Luang Prabang I ate dinner in the bamboo shack of a Lao translater I had met in the U.S. Information Service office. We ate a typical meal of tasteless "sticky rice," cooked vegetables and soup. We talked about the war, the Americans and the Pathet Lao. "Do you know what Pathet Lao means?" he asked me.

When I said I didn't he told me, "It means Lao People and that is what they are, Just Lao People." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper money used by the Pathet Lao. I had never seen one before. On it was a scene of the Plain of Jars: Lao gunners were shooting bazookas at American planes flying overhead. The remains of several shot down planes were strewn across the background.

He put the money back in his pocket. After a pause, he turned toward me and looked into my eyes. "I just want one thing," he said. "I wish the fighting would stop." I turned away