This diary describes the adventures and observations of a French woman during a trip up the Mekong to Luang Prabang and back through Siam. At the end of 1909 the territorial situation in Indochina was largely consolidated and Marthe Bassenne"s book provides a first glimpse of the extent of the French efforts to open up the hinterland of Tonkin, Annam and Cochin-china. The Mekong and the Lao jungles were as wild and as deadly as ever and this trip to experience the New Year festivities in Luang Prabang is full of adventures with local people and wild nature. On the way back, through the northeastern Siamese provinces of Nongkhai, Uttaradit and Phitsanuloke the feelings of the indigenous people towards a French woman, are faithfully recorded. For, while this book is factually correct in its details, it is so much the richer for its emphasis on impressions and personal feelings of one of the rare woman travelers in this part of the Far East.