The mother of all sleeper bus trips

Zooming out in the took-took

After relaxing in Vientiane for a couple of days it was time to move on and once again the sleeper bus seemed as good an idea as any. A took-took picked us up at our hotel along with a few other tourists. One bloke from the Netherlands was telling us of all the hassles he had had. Somehow it makes you feel better when you hear of other’s hardship, so it was pretty funny really.

We got on the bus expecting the worst, it was hot, humid and uncomfortable, but you get that. At about 2 am the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere for a while and while it was stopped the barely functional air-conditioning was turned off and it soon started to feel like a sauna in the bus. After maybe 10 minutes the bus got going again, but stopped again maybe 10 minutes later. One more start then a final break down, this time outside a bus station in a remote town. The radiator was cooked. It was maybe 2:30 or 3 am and we waited for a while in the stinking hot bus, our clothes feeling wet with sweat, not really knowing what was happening. It was one of those unbearable times where you just have to put the torture out of your mind.

Misty mountains early in the morning

Outside it was raining lightly, with no shelter about, so you got wet from sweat inside the bus or from the rain on the outside. Thankfully a minibus turned up by maybe 5 am and offered people a lift to Luang Prabang which we gladly accepted but had to pay for about ½ the value of the original bus ticket. It was worth it though just to be moving on from our hell-hole.

Clear-fell logging, just like home

The area going into Luang  Prabang is very mountainous, and with that comes very windy roads. The scenery is usually pretty good though, with misty clouds near forested mountain tops; sort of what I hoped Laos would be like. And like home, lots of clear-fell logging. Not just the scenery changed though, you could clearly see the faces of the people changing. Without wanting to sound racist it is perhaps easy for us to think that all Asians look the same, but here you could see people of a more Mongol appearance, or somewhat similar to American Indians.

We finally got to Luang Prabang by lunch time and got a took-took to our hotel. We were met by a Vietnamese girl who was very nice, helpful and caring to us the whole time we were there.