Well, here I am in Laos, a country I don't think I'd ever heard of until I came to Thailand last year, but one that is bigger than the UK.

Population: not many; religion 60% Buddhist; governmental system: communist.

The Laos Airlines flight to Luang Prabang took an hour, over green-ridged hills and cultivated valleys. The airport is tiny, and had one other plane on the tarmac. I arrived without either Kip or $US, and bought a visa for 1500 Thai Baht and a taxi ride into town for 300 Baht to a place called the Heritage Guest House, where a decent room with aircon and private shower costs $11. It's in the part of town lying on the peninsula formed by the meeting of the mighty Mekong river and a tributary coming in from the east, and is right next to a Buddhist temple where I went and sat with some young monks who were chanting with much gusto as the sun went down at about 6 pm.

The main drag just around the corner is full of travellers restaurants and eco-tourism offices, a seemingly thriving hive of free-enterprise, and I've rented a mountain bike for $5 for the whole day tomorrow, when I'm planning to check out the city itself and some of the surrounding countryside. I've been forced to get money from a travel agency on my credit card, where I got a useless exchange rate plus a 6% commission charge, but it serves me right I suppose, as I didn't read the Lonely Planet guide's simple sentence 'There are no ATMs in Laos at the time of writing' until it was too late. Anyway, it's so cheap here that it's not worth worrying about.

There are about 50 temples in the city, which is small (population 26,000) and historic. It is supposedly the best-preserved city in South East Asia due to the facts that its typical layout of small village units linked by roads is uniquely preserved, and that many of its original religious and civic buildings still stand. It was also a French colonial centre, as plenty of grand houses testify, and it was not seriously damaged by American bombing in the 60's and 70's, unlike much of the country to the east where the Ho Chi Minh Trail (or Trails, more accurately) sustained the supply routes supporting the guerrilas in South Vietnam.

The whole city became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995.