the capital city, Vientienne. It took ten hours. Those were not
pleasant hours zipping along interstate. They were ten bumpy, windy,
gut-churning hours. But I get ahead of myself.
The morning started at 5:10am, when our alarm went off. We were
waiting for our tuk-tuk to pick us up at 5:40. A woman selling sticky
rice approached us and Robert got very excited. We didn't question why
she was out at that ungodly hour until our brains finally translated
her garbled phrase, "sticky rice for monks?" We had to say no thank
you. We couldn't buy rice meant for the monks to take on our trip.
Every morning, the monks walk the streets and collect food from the
people, their daily ration. In exchange, they bless the offerer. We
didn't see any monks this morning because our tuk-tuk whisked us away,
but there were a surprising number of people sitting by the main
streets, waiting to give food to monks and get their blessing. When
the tuk-tuk did come, he checked our ticket - turning it upside down
to "read" it and confirm we were his charges. I suppose I would try to
read Lao script upside down too.
We got to the bus station in plenty of time for our scheduled
six-thirty departure and damn early for our actual 7:15 push time. We
worked ourselves into a tizzy over whether or not we would get to sit
together. We were assigned two different seats, but would they check?
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. We went to sit on the bus
before it filled up so we could try to use the "possession is 9/10ths
of the law rule." It got hairy a few times as seat disputes erupted
around us, but we were only asked to move one row forward and then we
were left alone. I tried to look peaceful and unmoveable as I fake
slept on Robert's shoulder. Some combination of my peacefulness,
unmoveableness, whiteness and ticket number helped us keep our seats.
(Robert eventually concluded that we were in fact assigned the two
seats we occupied, the person just couldn't properly write a 7, but
who knows - maybe it was my unmoveableness!)
The rest of the day crawled by. Once we got out of the city, we hit
mountains, giant cliff-sided mountains. The roads swerved and curved
and loop-de-looped, making my stomach and head do equally unpleasant
things. We both took some Dramamine, floating our heads on balloon
strings above the bus, but it prevented us from needing to use the
cute little plastic puke bags they were passing out. Others were not
so lucky. There was terrible Asian pop music on repeat until even the
bus driver tired of it, but that was better than listening to the bus
squeak and others puke. Five hours passed where I refused to open my
eyes.
The day got much cheerier when we stopped for lunch. We didn't know
how long of a stop the bus was making, but we went ahead and bought
some noodle soup. My stomach was still not so great, but it felt nice
to eat. We stopped a few other times for people to pee and I enjoyed
watching a woman manage to pee, right alongside a row of men, without
exposing herself! She was wearing a sarong and just loosened it a
little so as not to pee on the hem and squat. Viola! Magic.
Thankfully, the stretch of road after lunch was not nearly as curvy
and my equilibrium settled to allow for more normal bus riding, like
looking out the window - imagine that! Then the bus broke down, twice,
but a wrench and some elbow grease and we were moving again in nothing
flat. We got to the bus station at 5 pm, ten hours after we left.
Uggg. A single traveler glommed onto us at the bus station and
followed at our heels as we searched out accommodation. I don't know
what she would have done without us to lead her on three laps of the
city. It took a while, but we found decent, $11 accommodation at the
Orchid Guesthouse. Banlao Beer Garden for dinner and then back to the
room to watch a bad movie (the only thing in English) and read/write.
Sleep is definitely in order.
Surprisingly, no pictures were taken today.
