Today we got sun burnt. Not too badly. The problem was that we hired bikes, so while flitting around Vientienne we felt fairly cool, not realising that the very bright sun was landing straing onto a very flat still arms. Ah well, live and learn- moral of the story if riding bike take sun screen with us.

We started out at the Triumphal arch. It is referred to locally as the vertical air strip, because it is made of cement that was donate by the US to build a runway for the airport. Ah the Loations, why build and air strip when you can have something sort of pretty instead?

Then on to the National Museum. Not as good a Ho Chi Minh but with a certain character to it. The continuous references to the 'American Imperialists' was quite amazing. Did you know they spent more than $2million a day bombing this country? Just because there were rebel Vietnamese people around? (well that and a steadily rising communist movement.

There are still plenty of unexploded bombs hanging around and thousands of people are maimed or die every year. Especially given the high price of scrap metal these days- when you're poor a 1 in 100 chance of explosion is not enough of a deterrent to stop you sending your kids out with metal detectors....

Then we headed to the Pha That Luang. (Pics of Facebook soon) it's a big pointy gold thing. Well A Wat to be precise. It's a Buddist place of worship and a symbol on Lau independace. It's very impressive.

Lunch a a really good Pizza Pasta Place- I know no local but the change was nice! And the afternoon at a market (new sunglasses and a pack of cards). Just relaxing now in the Scandinavian Bakery before a nice long bus ride to Luang Prapang.