Kanitha proved to be an efficient guide. The jeep’s silent driver raced, slid and pushed through eighty hellish kilometers of muddy roads in four hours and deposited Maier and the girl on the shores of Ang Nam Ngum just after midday. In the shadow of a rickety sala, its grass roof torn away by the rains, Kanitha negotiated the hire of an equally unsteady-looking long-tail boat. The boat man took his time filling his plastic fuel tank, and Maier could feel the girl getting restless. But she didn’t complain and sat silently in the prow as they pushed off towards Léon’s home.
The small island rose from the water like a magical place in a fairy tale. Fields graced the tree-lined hillsides, and small canoes lay on the grassy shore. Old people pottered around between water and sky. There were n
