A German backpacker with braided, red-tinted hair and a Lao tourist, perched on a tree branch like a giant parrot, gaze intensely from a rocky islet onto the vast, shimmering expanse of the Mekong River.

They're hoping to glimpse the perpetual smile of an enchanting creature legends say was once a beautiful and tragic woman.

It's hardly a drop-in tourist destination. This stretch of the mighty, 2,700-mile Mekong is set in the remote, southwestern corner of Laos. Not long ago, murderous Khmer Rouge guerrillas roamed the malarial jungles on the opposite bank in Cambodia.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/travel/...03-06-laos.htm