Laos has the stigma of being the most bombed country, per capita, in the world. I was expecting to learn about the impact of the Vietnam War later in our trip - in Vietnam actually - but it was not until arriving in Vientiane that I discovered the scale of the problem that still haunts this small country. My limited knowledge of the 1964 to 1973 period of war, which saw the Americans undertake 580,000 bombing missions on Laos alone, is shockingly bad and something that I need to understand more about. Do the maths and 580,000 bombing missions equates to about one planeload of bombs being dropped every eight minutes, twenty four hours a day, for nine years.

Most of these missions were dropping cluster bombs, 260 million bombs in total, of which an estimated 30% failed to detonate. Laos is still living with around 78 million unexploded bombs (or UXOs - Unexploded Ordnance) across about half of the country. Many of these are found in rice paddies, forests, at the sides of roads or even in school playgrounds. Over 30,000 people have been injured by UXOs since 1973 in Laos and despite education there are still around 300 casualties each year. Many of these are fatalities but others are horrible life changing injuries and around 40% involve children.

In Vientiane we visited the COPE centre, which is working to provide prosthetic limbs and other aides for people affected by UXOs (as well as other accidents). The displays, information, videos and biographies were eye opening to say the least. You can donate via their website (www.copelaos.org) and a few pounds or dollars will go a long way. If you want to know more about the USA's bombing campaign in Laos then this website (www.legaciesofwar.org) has much more information.

Vientiane itself was a bit if a disappointment after our time in Luang Prabang. Maybe it was the 'touristy' nature and UNESCO Heritage status of the second city that made it a highlight of our trip to date and it was a shame that we did not really 'get' Vientiane. There were things to see - lots of temples - but it felt more grubby, unkempt and nowhere near as relaxing as Luang Prabang nor did it have the buzz of somewhere like Bangkok. There are some big developments on the way including two massive shopping malls which are currently under construction and maybe in a few years they will also have made something of the waterfront area along the banks of the Mekong. We did visit a number of the temples including Pha That Luang, the most sacred in Laos and Wat Sisaket, the only temple not to gave been destroyed by the Siam invasion of Vientiane in 1827. We also visited the haphazard National Museum which seemed to cover a huge time period from neolithic to modern day by way of lots of photographs and clay pots but little actual description of key events and time periods. It did seem to have a bit of an anti France and USA stance although it was not really that clear what message they wanted to get across.

We actually left Vientiane a day earlier than planned and crossed via the international rail link from the station at Thanaleng, about 15km from the centre of Vientiane, to Nong Khai in Thailand. The 5km journey took less than ten minutes and crossed the Mekong River by the Friendship Bridge which is closed to road traffic to enable the train to cross. It took longer to get through Thai passport control than it did to make the cross border rail journey. Most people on the train were catching the overnight train to Bangkok, but we now have a day in Nong Khai before we savour that experience.