After all that travelling we are ready to chill out and luckily the weather knows it too and starts to rain. I find an awesome Brass Monkey type joint owned by an elderly French couple (there are so many French people in Laos! [Due to the historical connection- the French colonised Laos at the end of the 19th century]). The place shows films day and night, has a fully stocked library, friendly open atmosphere and sells relatively expensive but tasty food. When I notice that the walls on the first floor are literally lined with old National Geographic's, I am certain that this is where I will spend the rest of the day. It's really great to chill out for a while after all that moving around. After a day of recuperation, we are ready to get back on it.

The next day we get up early to visit Big Brother Mouse, an established English language school that holds open sessions for anyone who wants to learn English assisted by volunteers. I spend the morning talking to a monk with fantastic English that we met previously and a Mong boy who wants to work as a tour guide. It's really interesting speaking to these two young men who are around the same age but living completely different lives. With my western idealist take on Buddhism, I have always seen it as an open and accepting philosophy rather than a religion, but in Laos the traditional belief is held in the animistic in a lot of areas, although technically the practice of 'magic' is banned and all men are expected to become a monk at some point in their lives. Despite the fact that they speak the same dialect, it is clear that the two young men in front of me live very different lives and although I am dying to dig deeper, I try to steer away from any topics that may cause awkwardness or discomfort. Big Brother Mouse publish their own books. I pick up a couple of these to hand out to children I meet along the way; one on traditional Laos food and another Laos Folklore tale. Later in the day we return to visit Michael and his students, in his modest classroom at the back of the Temple. It was great to see him and his students again and Amihai tells us all about Israel.

In the evening we get wasted on dangerously cheap Laos Whisky at Utopia. One minute Niki is fine, she disappears for a few minutes and comes back transformed into a giggling, hiccupping drunk. I am not far behind! During the 200m walk from the bar to our hotel we start a party outside a cornershop with a young gay Laos couple; two of the sweetest guys, who don't seem to mind us causing havoc outside their shop. After several hours talking and drinking with the young Laos lads and having WWF matches we move the party on to the roof top (which we luckily discovered that night) and meet a new South American friend on the way.