Stalking the Elephant Kings: In Search of Laos

Twenty years after the Indochina wars, Christopher Kremmer visited Laos--at the crossroads of change in Southeast Asia.

He started his journey in the tranquility of Luang Prabang, once the royal capital. But despite its ancient culture and stately airs, the town--like Laos itself--is a place of secrets, mysteries and nagging questions. Setting off in search of the lost royal family, a 600-year-old dynasty consumed by the violent troubles of the 1960s and 1970s, the author reveals a small land-locked corner of Asia struggling to come to terms with the legacies of the American war and Asian communism. This is travel with a mission and it takes the author deep into Laos--to the bomb craters and enigmatic stone containers of the Plain of Jars, the brooding caves and limestone peaks of Houaphan near the Lao border with Vietnam, and the southern provinces bordering Cambodia.