In the morning we went for breakfast and explained our plans. Koen was off to Phnom Penh, Dave and I had decided to fly to Hanoi (24hours on 'Asias worst bus route'. No thank you!) and Susanne wanted to change guesthouses as her room was like a 'prison cell' (and how does she know?)

Koen, Dave and I headed off to the Laos Aviation Office. Every guidebook stated "Don't fly Laos Aviation" in some sort of fashion, but we went anyway. Koens flight was booked solid so he headed off elsewhere, we could get flights for the day after tomorrow, for 108 dollars.

After a quick trip back to the guesthouse Dave and I headed our separate ways. I headed toward the 'Cultural Hall' for a bit of 'culture'. I walked in thinking 'Why have they got a full size metal detector?' when a short blokey grabbed my shoulder, and being annoyed at the SE Asian tendency to touch turned to confront my aggressor. He was short, angry, shouty, in full military uniform and the hand not on my shoulder was rested on the handgun in the open holster at his hip. Fook!

I had no idea what the chap was saying, and as several more short, shouty, military garbed locals with guns were approaching I was in a bit of a flap! I raised my arms and said (and I quote) 'Whoa Down Matey!'. I believe this is a mix up between 'Whoa There' and 'Calm Down'. I'm not sure were the 'Matey' came from but knowing they didn't understand English I hoped the Appeasing sound of my voice would keep me out of any trouble

I was forceably escorted outside whilst all the time being shouted at, when outside the short military men shouted a bit more (still in Laos) and then went back to their posts. So... this isn't a museum then. I checked a bloody big, extremely obvious and written in English sign that read that there was a WDEC meeting going on.

I headed into the revolutionary museum (making bloody sure 'museum' was in the title!) It was full of the usual... Ancient historical finds, the different tribes of the country, The Kings of Laos, and then in to Contemporary history... How the French are Imperialist Bastards (The Imperialist Bastards!), how the Americans are Capitalist Pigs (The Capitalist Pigs!) and the usual Bullshit stuff ( Tribes-woman Blah shot down a Phantom jet fighter with this here slingshot!).

Enough of that (for now!) I went for a walk and ended up at Wat Sisaket. Where I bumped into Jeremy and Adele. And then headed up the main road to the Lao Arc de Triumph (?!?). It was shut. With the lower part obscured by green corrugated metal barriers. I took a couple of pictures anyway before heading to the river.

I headed over to a bar by our guesthouse, sat down and read the day old, Thai paper. Koen came over and said he'd been to the Big Gold thing and seen Dave and Susanne there. ahhhhh....

We all met up later for dinner, Dirk had run into Mark and he would be joining us later before heading south that evening. We went down to the bar by the fair and ate pizza (it was VERY good!) and drank more carafes of Beer Lao, before saying goodbye to Mark.

We had a beer closer to the guesthouse again before I had a room to myself all night :-)