Saturday, October 18, 2014

Racing in the Rain - Phongsali to Udomxai, Laos


WARNING: This story is not mom-proof.


We were happy to leave Phongsali and head south, with dreams of civilization and the friendly Lao people that we heard about so often. We woke up early and made it to the old bus station just after sunrise.

The bus we boarded was the oldest in the station. It was a Hyundai from the late 70's, I would guess, and we were the only foreigners on board. We nicknamed it the "battle bus", not knowing how appropriate the moniker would prove to be.


The one-lane dirt road was violently bumpy, to the point that Lauren and I had to brace ourselves against the adjacent seats to keep from flying out of our own..  

A few minutes into the trip, we noticed a steel exhaust pipe header precariously propped above our heads banging away on its metal rack so Chris fastened it down with a bicycle tube. 

The road hugged the side of a steep cliff with countless blind curves that the bus driver tore around like we were in a rally car race, causing us to speculate what would happen if a car or truck was coming at the same time. 

Not long after, we learned the answer to this question. We screamed left around a corner to find an oncoming car competing for the same patch of road. We veered further left and dropped two wheels in the ditch as the car passed. We pulled right to get back on the road but overcompensated and everyone on the bus was convinced we were heading off the cliff. On cue, a chorus of cries crescendoed into a dreadful and hilarious wail. With only inches to spare we veered left again planting two wheels, once more, in the ditch before regaining control of the bus and continuing down the road.

Following this, many of the Lao passengers became quite car sick and proceeded to vomit into plastic bags, one after another, like dominoes. A couple of old Lao women, in an attempt to calm their stomachs, tied their scarves around their heads like a blindfold. This wouldn't have been my first choice in dealing with car sickness and, we learned about 15 minutes later, it wasn't particularly effective for the Lao women either. 

Lauren and I agreed that the Lao were a tough bunch though- no crying or asking the bus driver to pull over, just three simple steps- vom in the bag, tie up the bag, bag out the window.

A few hours later we stopped at a roadside stand for snacks where a young boy was selling something furry tied in a bundle.



On closer inspection, we saw that it was about a dozen dead "squirrels" (We called them squirrels because they looked like nothing we've ever seen, but roughly resembled a squirrel).  A couple of the Lao passengers casually bought a few and brought them back on the bus. Lovely.



During the second half of our trip it started raining. Par for the course, the windshield wipers didn't work. A few minutes into the rain Lauren noticed her shoulder getting wet. This turned into a steady trickle of water coming through the roof onto our seat. 

Evidently, this was not a new problem as the particle board roof was swollen and moldy above our heads. So Lauren put on my rain jacket and was comfortably dressed for the outdoors for the remainder of the trip.

The bus station clerk told us the trip to Udomxai was 8 hrs, and in Laos this usually means 10 hrs. In our case, the trip took 7 hrs thanks to our race-car driver. But really you don't gain any time because you spend the next 3 hours decompressing from the most stressful trip of your life.


No comments:

Post a Comment