Luang Prabang

Well, by tomorrow we'll have been here for 6 nights and it's still a wrench to leave - it's effortlessly elegant. I'm having real problems uploading the pics today and seem to have lost the better ones. In order the pics are - me swimming in the Khian Si waterfall, the Royal Museum, Bec at the waterfall and a view of the town itself.

Laos was a former French colony so there was a pic of some locals playing petanque, games spring up all over the place just like France. Most of the buildings have a French feel and houses wouldn't look out of place in the cote d'azur.

The Royal Museum was the Royal Palace until the communists came to rule in 1975. The royal family then went into exile and no-one has heard of them since. Weirdly, there is no mention of this in the museum but they do have exhibits of their clothes, LPs and gifts from other state heads (including a model of of a spaceship from Richard Nixon!)

From here we'll be going south to Vang Vieng, then the capital Vientian and then back to Bangkok (on our way to Cambodia) to meet Wils and Nicola.

Right, I'm going to try and retrieve the pics I may have lost or have a cry somewhere!