Well mates, we've shaken the not inconsiderable dust of Laos from our trotters (and believe me, there was a whole lot of shaking going on....)
But before we move on to our next adventure, I want to share something that I've discovered about Laos.
Between 1964 & 1973, the Americans,in order to aid their efforts in Vietnam, launched a "secret war" against Laos. They dropped an estimated 2 million tons of bombs on the country,one payload every 8 minutes, apparently. Quite how this was a secret war is beyond me. You'd think someone would have complained about the noise.....
Worse still, only about 30% of the bombs actually went off, meaning that there's still an awful lot of unexploded stuff out there ...
Subsequently, the US government made a payment to Laos to help them rebuild their runway which was inexplicably full of craters.
The Laos government took the money zand used it to build a replica of the Arc De Triomphe, known locally as the Victory arch or the vertical runway, depending on which side of the fence you're on.
No wonder is so dusty........
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