Pakse

Top, a smiling 29-year-old man from Pakse, was working in the dining room.

He was from Pakse, he said, the son of a Vietnamese mother and a father who was Laotian and Chinese.

We crossed the Thai-Laos border near the Laotian town of Pakse.

A young man sent from the River Resort then drove us the half-hour from Pakse to the hotel, built along the Mekong.

He said that was his goal, to be a D.J., and that there were two bars in Pakse where D.J.s played.