Dear All

We did manage to get up at 5am to go and see the monks almscollecting from the locals. This is much more about allowing the locals to feel better than the monks needing it. It happens every day and they live very well with mobile phones and cigarettes (surruptitiously behind the buildings). Then we went to see the river before walking back home and get another one and a half hours in bed! It was lovely and comparatively cool (25) at that time of day though and it was not really surprising that so much was going on.

After breakfast we got a lift to the river again annd then a boat on the Mekong for one and a half hours to the caves upstream where river spirits and later Buddah has been revered for centuries. It was a long 12 seater launch with a roof which had plastic sides to roll down when it started to rain. Peter says it was about 70 ft long. The river is wide here though and we felt very small in the middle especially as the wind got up, and when we had to go over riffles. there was surprisingly little wildlife at the edge but we did see lots of water buffalo. We enjoyed the breeze as we went along. We stopped to buy some rice wine/ whisky on the way.

We tried some which was 55% proof - blow your socks off.

The caves were used to house 300 people for many years during the fighting as an airraid shelter. They had fighting here for much of the 20th century by the sound of things only stopping in 1975. We have just looked round the old royal palace which is now a museum. They were deposed then. The Americans were on the side od the royal family which is why so much of this town was spared. Tourism has only been going a decade but they want much more. Its the next decade's Thailand I think.

Time for a drink. Hit the road at 8am tomorrow and stop the night at Vang Vien tomorrow. Get the atlases out!

Lots of love

Ruth and Peterxxx