was really bright and airy. The other room just looked out to where the lady did the ironing so a much better view was in store for us over the next couple of days! After breakfast we headed down to the passport office and collected our passports. We are now wondering whether we should have got a 32 page passport due to the fact we only have 13 free pages left in them already!

Next on our agenda was the National Museum, but everywhere has a siesta so we had to wait until it reopened at 1.00 p.m. No big hassle really it just meant we went and chilled in our room for half an hour and got out of the heat of the midday sun! This day was the 30th November and it was hard to try and remember that. It was like a glorious summers day! The museum was very interesting, but again we did see the grim accounts of the American bombing campaign in this part of the world. Laos’s history seems to be very

unknown to the rest of the world and even less is known about America’s carpet bombing campaign in the American War as it is called in these parts. Basically because the Vietnamese communists were using part of northern Laos for moving troops the Americans bombed the living daylights out of the place. Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. It was shocking reading and some of the photographs were extremely sad. It was after this that communism really took off, and to be honest I can understand why due to the western world’s aggressive tendencies to this part of the world.

After the museum we headed down towards the Presidential Palace which is a mightily impressive French Colonial style building and next to is Haw Pha Kaew which is now the Museum of Art and Antiquities. It used to be the King’s personal Buddhist temple but now is used as a museum. It certainly