We were there at a moment when the situation in Laos threatened to ignite another war among the world's giants. Even if it did not, how would this little world of gentle people cope with its new reality of grenades and submachine guns?

To find out, we traveled throughout that part of Laos still nominally controlled, in the daytime at least, by the Royal Lao Army: from Attopeu, the City of Buffalo Dung in the southeast, to Muong Sing, the City of Lions in the northwest, close to Communist China (map, page 250). We rode over roads so rough that our Jeep came to rest atop the soil between ruts, all four wheels spinning uselessly. We flew in rickety planes so overloaded that we wondered why they didn't crash. In the end we ran into Communist artillery fire.

``We'' were Bill Garrett of the National Geographic Illustrations Staff, whose three cameras and eight lenses made him look as formidable as any fighting man we met; Boun My, our interpreter; and myself.

Boun My -- the name means one who has a boun, a celebration, and is therefore lucky -- was born in Savannakhet, the Border of Paradise. He had attended three universities in the United States. But he had never seen the mountainous half of his native land north of Vientiane, including the royal capital, Luang Prabang. Before the airplanes came, he said, travel in Laos was just about impossible.

Alas, so it almost proved for us, too. To go outside the few cities required permits. and getting them seemed a life's work. Nobody wanted Americans to be hurt or captured, and few soldiers could be spared as escorts.