Most people head straight to the border, and don't spend the day at Sam Neua, but because we are stupid, we had completely ran out of money and the bank opened at 8am, and the bus we had to catch left at 7am! But we were really glad we stayed as it was not only a welcome break from bus journeys, but also a really good experience! Sam Neua is a rual village in the mountains (so its cold) and the people aren't used to tourists (like they are in the other places we have visited in Laos), so they were really pleased to see us and would say hello to us as we walked past (hello was all most people could say in english). We didn't see any other western people all day. In the afternoon we went for a walk and a local (who turned out to be an english teacher) must of heard us talking and invited us back to his home so that we could help him improve his english. We couldn't stop laughing at one point becasue he was asking what can't meant, but he wasn't saying it properly so we were teling him not to use that word as its very rude in english!! Later on in the day a girl who was driving past stopped when she saw us and asked if she could talk to us to practise her english! In the evening we met up with the english teacher and his students (one of which was the girl that we had spoken to earlier in the day) and they were all really keen to talk to us to practise their english! They took us to a loas bar which had laos kareoke and disco, it was really nice to mix with the locals like this as we haven't been given the chance to in other places. A really good day!!