Dear All I hope I am counting right and it is not 3.

We are in the capital of Laos todat - Vientiane. Its a sllepy low level place of a million people but that is a quarter of the population of this sparsely populated country. It sounds as if many died in the American bombings, and the life expectancy is barely 70 anyway. there are certainly a lot of children. They seem to look after each other and we have seen lots of gangs - probably the wrong word - of them. As we came south over the last two days in or minibus we saw a lot of the country and understand much more about life here. There are many hill tribes who have been moved down the mountains because of problems with deforestation, so their homes are relatively new but still of bamboo and banana and wood in the aree north of Vien Vang where we stayed last night on the Song river, but are more of cement and brick and concrete as we have travelled nearer to the capital today. Sticky rice is grown on the hills amongst the tree stumps, and white rice in the paddy fields of the lowlands. It is the planting season just now and there have been many classic shots of people in cooli hats in the paddy fields today. The nurseries are where the seedlings are growing. They are very green. The mud is rotivated, usually by a hand rotatator machine which has like a paddle steamer wheels.

We stopped at a small village/extended family en route and I gave out the coloured ball pens, mosaic sheets and glow in the dark ladybird stickers I had bought in Tescos. The children were bemused. I don't know if their clothes are ever washed but the ladybirds are now stuck on very dirty tee shirts.

Today we have seen more temples and caves, and tomorrow we fly to Cambodia in what promises to be a slightly worrying flight. I'm looking forward to hearing what happened at Tuesday's meeting on the racecourse, Louise. Barabara says it was heated!

I still haven't heard how the weekend in France went - hint hint!

We gather the football is on Sat not Thurs as we had been told, so not sure if we will see it.

We are off out to look for something to eat tonight now. Stepan has suggested somewhere if we can find it! Oh I have left the map back in the hotel!

Take care. Lots of love

Ruth and Peter