Things were obviously happening in Laos. Stories had been filtering through the closed border to Thailand about re education centres and big parades in the capital, Vientiane. The nervous General Manager of Royal Air Lao, a member of the Royal Family, had just swum across the Mekong to Thailand. A Thai police chief had added to Bankok Post' speculation by claiming that Vietnamese, under Hanoi control, were behind the border 'incidents'. His 'Catch 22' proof for this was that there was absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever, claiming that the Vietnamese agents were far too cunning to leave behind any signs of their involvement.

So the shooting exchange between a Thai gunboat and Lao soldiers indicated much more than just itchy trigger fingers and disputed river channels The Thai politicians obviously thought that the last chapter of the Indo-China war, unless they were careful, would include some pages on Thailand.

The newspapers in Thailand were preparing the public for a possible military response and so were making Laos sound as dangerous and turbulent as possible. Flights were still going from Bangkok to Vietinae and the Embassy was still issuing visa, so I was already sceptical of the hysteria. Besides, to go to Viet Nam, I had to go through Laos.

A Royal Air Lao flight was scheduled to fly to Vientiane on Saturday. The Air France issuing office warned me to expect a phone call on the Saturday morning to inform me whether the flight would be going. What were termed 'gasoline problems' had kept most previous flights from leaving. This was no exception, and instead I had to take a Thai Airways flight the following day.