Finale

Well folks, we're almost back home - can't believe we'll be in UK Saturday! Hilary - I'll give you a text or a ring on Saturday evening when we get in and let you know when we are due in Manchester on Sunday - around lunchtime I seem to remember. Any chance of a Sunday dinner??!!!
Laos has been wonderful - an almost unspoilt country of mountains, rivers and caves - I suspect 5 years will see a big change - not all for the better. One of the highlights was a trip to the Plain of Jars - massive stone jars scattered over a high plain and surrounding hills. Current opinion is that they were used to contain funerary offerings. Another highlight was wandering through the rice fields and clambering over rocks to several caves in the limestone karsts and another a 2 hour trip along the river and through 7 km caves full of stalactites. We have climbed hills towander around ruins of Wat Phu (5-13th century) and ridden elephants to an old Cham (1-4th C) ruined temple site on the top of some other hills! Today we went down the Meking into Cambodia to see Irrawaddy dolphins - black specks in the distance but the journey was good as were the Somphamit waterfalls we visited on the way. Tomorrow we visit some even larger falls on our way into Thailand to get the plane to Bangkok and then off to Heathrow Saturday morning.
We've been 2 weeks in Laos and Iain's impressions are of a beautiful country relatively untouched by tourism which is unlikely to continue in view of the government's policy to increase it. There is a peculiar mix of tragic history (USA bombings and defoliant destroying much in the north), religion (Buddhism and Animism), politics and economic revival (capitalism and communism seem to coexist happily with Buddhism).
See you all soon - on 18th April if not before. Lots of love Ann and Iain