One wonders where Dervla Murphy will go to write about next; at this stage she seems to have exhausted most of the planet Earth's surface and may have to take to outer space - where, no doubt, she will still find much to report on. Laos, it seems, became the most heavily bombarded country in the world during and after the war in Vietnam, its near neighbour. That there is anything left of the country seems rather surprising, and in fact tourists were not allowed into it until ten years ago. Of course, globalisation (termed "modernisation") is rapidly doing its worst and was probably unavoidable, given the speed with which the Asian nations are being changed overnight. Dervla Murphy loved the country and its people - "the most lovable and in many ways the most civilised people I have ever travelled among" - but left there with the sad feeling that it would have changed almost out of recognition within a few years.