Today we got a sleep in, hurrah! We headed down to breakfast and as Paap was still sick she headed back to the room and I went walking with John, Lisa and Sabrina.

We headed up to victory gate, an arc de triumph style arch at one end of a wide tree lined boulevard. This monument was never finished but it looked nice all the same. I then dropped into the markets to pick up a pair of sunnies after drunkenly leaving mine in Vang Vieng. After scoring a pair of "Guggi" glasses (hmm... Wonder if they were fake?) I wandered to the other end of the road where the presidential palace sat, by the Mekong river. A bit more walking and I had made my way back to the hotel to meet Paap for lunch at the Jomo cafe! A delightful sandwich later (thank you French influence!) and we were heading to the Vientiane international airport for our flight to Hanoi! The airport is quite small, only 3 departure gates. But it still has majorly overpriced food say about 3x normal! Probably still cheaper than home.

In summary, Laos is a lovely little place but probably the poorest country I have visited. This is quite evident outside the major cities of Luang Prabang and Vientiane with little infrastructure such as roads, rail, hospitals. It's also quite horrifying the number of people still affected by unexploded bombs from the Vietnam war. Despite this most of the people are smiling and happy for you to be in Laos. Before long it's simple nature will be a thing of the past.

Not long til we hit Vietnam which will be in stark contrast to the simple life in Laos!