The airport is ten minutes from the centre, which is a rare thing. You are met and taken to the hotel, and the afternoon is free. Before sunset we climb Mount Phousi — a little over three hundred steps, twenty minutes at a slow pace — for the layout of the town between the Mekong and the Nam Khan. Dinner together afterwards, and a briefing on the alms round for those who want to watch it.

An early start. Dawn is around half past five in the hot months and closer to half past six in the cool ones, and your leader fixes the time the evening before. We watch from across the street, sitting, without flash. Afterwards the fresh market, then breakfast. Later: the Royal Palace Museum, built in 1904 for King Sisavang Vong and left much as the family kept it in 1975, and Wat Xieng Thong at the end of the peninsula.

South out of town after breakfast, about forty-five minutes on a winding road. The bear rescue centre sits beside the path in, so we stop there first, then walk up past the lower pools to the main fall. The water is cold and the pools are open for swimming — bring a towel. Lunch is at the falls. On the way back we call at a Hmong village and a paper-making workshop before returning in the late afternoon.

A slow boat leaves mid-morning and takes about two hours against the current to the Pak Ou caves, two chambers in a limestone cliff at the mouth of the Nam Ou packed with Buddha images left by pilgrims. We stop at Ban Xang Hai on the way, where rice whisky is distilled and the jars are still buried. Back down with the current, which is quicker. Farewell dinner in town.

A free morning. The Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre gives an honest account of the upland groups and takes about an hour; the weaving centre downriver is the other good use of the time. Transfers to the airport are timed to your flight. If you are heading on to Vientiane, the railway station is eleven kilometres out of town and the train takes under two hours — we can arrange the seat.