I've spent quite a lot of time on buses recently, but the last twenty four hours have been the most 'hardcore' yet. We left Pakse at 8pm yesterday on the 'night bus'- an aircon bus with beds.
We'd expected a bed each but soon discovered it was two to a bunk. A rather apprehensive game of Rocks-Paper-Scissors decided that Justin would have to sleep next to a stranger while Katie and I shared. However, the Lao girl who was to share with Justin was less than happy about this arrangement and I soon wound up snuggled a bit too close to comfort in a very small bed with the very chunky Justin and our very big very blue guitar.
When the bus started, the cramping became the least of my worries. The quality of the road did nasty things to my stomach and the location of the air conditioning valve did even nastier things to my feet. As you can imagine, I didn't get much sleep that night. Justin and I managed to ignore the pain by listening to episode after episode of 'the now show' and we giggled uncontrollably far into the night. Not so pleasant for the other passengers but it was the only thing that kept me sane.
We arrived at Vientiane at 6am and an hour and a half later boarded the next bus for the ELEVEN HOUR journey to Luang Prabang. There was literally nowhere to sleep on this second bus and the air conditioning was so powerful that the temperature was into the minuses. If we hadn't been dressed for tropical climates it wouldn't have been so bad, but wearing a T-Shirt in a below freezing bus with nowhere to sleep sent us all into primal rage.
Our mood wasn't improved by the onboard entertainment where a rather ugly Laos Woman sang song upon song about her failed relationships of the past (almost invariably starting with a handsome chap knocking her over Noting Hill style and almost invariable ending with him being stupid/unfaithful/blown up).
Luckily the scenery outside the bus was absolutely stunning and odd shaped, green mountain ranges of Laos were both beautiful and haunting.
And they will be even more so tomorrow after some (much needed) sleep!
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3 comments:
are you carrying your laptop around with you? is it hard work?
and what are your plans for like, the next few years? cambridge?
How are you? We're dying to hear?
Have you managed to get any sleep - in something without wheels?
Love Mum
P.S. and without Justin..
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