Just finishing up on the non-temple part of our tour with some shots of the main streets of downtown Vientiane (seriously). Somchai (who actually loves Laos) used to cover Laos for American Express. I can't imagine a harder job then explaining to the very primitive hopitality industry what a credit card is, that it's ok for them to take a picture of a card rather than cash from their customers, and why they should let AmEx keep some of the total and trust them to eventually give them their share. Anyway, he used to come here frequently, and we were walking by the central bank (the building on the corner with the jeep parked in front of it) and Somchai went in to visit a friend who used to work there. And a few minutes later, he comes out with the governor of Laos' central bank, and we all go to lunch! I can't see stopping by the Federal Reserve in DC unannounced and lunching with Alan Greenspan (I know there's a new guy but with much less name recognition so I thought it might ruin the analogy). Anyway, the currency had completely collapsed and inflation was running over 100%, but we had a nice leisurely lunch so I guess everything was under control.