The Little Lao City That Nobody Could Spell in English

So sometime last week (earlier this week? what day is it?) we boarded a rickety longboat, took a couple last pics, and, in a rather anticlimactic way, sped across the Mekong River to the city of Huay Xai, Laos.

Well, that's how the guidebook spelled it. I don't think anybody really knew how to spell this town's name in English. I guess it was never meant to be spelled in English and, whenever things started being spelled in English around here, the town council, which surely must exist, never thought to set a correct spelling.

Fine. But I'm from La Grande, Oregon. And I've spent a considerable amount of time (read: far too much time) wondering how people mistakenly spell it LaGrande (no space?), Le Grande (come on, don't drop the feminine!), La Grand (really, Rand McNally USA 1998 atlas?), or any other iteration that is incorrect. But La Grande is just French for "the big" (or "the large" to put it more eloquently). 72% of U.S. foreign language speakers converse in French or Spanish so anybody can figure that out.

Now Amy is from Chillicothe, Ohio, so she may be a little more accustomed to misspellings, despite the fact that it was the first and third capital of Ohio, sandwiching Zanesville, and followed by Columbus of course. But sure, it means "principal town" in the Shawnee Indian tribe language. Certainly less people speak Shawnee than French, so a misspelling here and there must be understood.

OK, a little US-centric context. The point is, nobody could spell this poor little Lao town's name!

First of all, you had the h/x fans, which included the immigration department ("houay xay"), a guesthouse ("houay xai"), an import-export business ("houei xay"), and the Department of PWT, whatever that means ("houi xai"). They apparently got together and decided that things started with hou_ _ and ended with xa_. OK, everybody's happy.

But wait, then there's the h/s crowd, counting as their own the commercial port ("houei sai"), the "cruise" office ("houei say"), and the riverside restaurant ("houy say"). They're a proud bunch who rebelled and said no to the whole "x" business and decided that things would start with hou_ _ and end in sa_. Nobody likes "x" anyway.


In a little town such as this, you would expect a war. But even within the crowds there's significant dissent and I suspect the sign-makers are to blame. As long as they keep changing things up, people will just have to buy more signs!

But who's going to say which spelling is correct?!? From 24 hours in this town, I could only find one authority figure who could possibly figure this out, the one woman who didn't mince words when it came to naming her shop.

Step forward, Ms. Bakery, if that is your real name, and straighten things out for your beloved bordertown...