Another Month In Laos.

We got up early today, sent off some more postcards, and went and applied for a visa extention. We thought that we may have to wait a day for it, but with lots of smiles, a lot of "khop jai" (thank you), and they let us have it the same day. All good fun running from little window to little window, getting a form here, handing it over there, paying the fee back across there, then collecting the passports at the end over there!

We also went to visit MAG (Mines Advisory Group), the UK based NGO I mentioned before. Jamie the Brit running the project here had sent us a map of how to get there, so we found it tucked down a little dirt track quite easily. We sat and chatted for a good while. He told us about the work of MAG and showed us airel images that he just got from UNESCO of the Plain Of Jars sites that we had visited. It showed what had been cleared and what was still potentially covered with UXO. It was amazing to see from over-head the masses of craters left after the bombings by the American Air Force.

He also gave us a lead on maybe getting a foot in the door on voluntary work, giving us the contact details of a woman who coordinates the work of the NGO's here in Laos. So once again fingers-crossed, but definately not holding our breath this time.

After we got back to the guesthouse, Sam crashed on the bed and I went and exchanged the book I'd read. I swapped it for one by a writer called Jim Dodge, entitled Stone Junction. It's part of the Rebel Inc. series, same as Brautigan stuff I have read, so should be good.

Tomorrow we plan to head back up north to Vien Vieng, about a 5 hour bus journey from here. It's beautiful up there, and it's also near to the WWOFing place if the NGO/volunteering path just runs cold.

Current Black Jack scores (although we've not played for a while) are, 42 to Sam and 52 to me.