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Laos Bus 1
And for a Sunday morning I for one, was loving the paint work. Matt Writes ; We have spent the last two days driving through Northern Thailand. Two long bus journeys from Chang Mai to Chang Rai, then to Chiang Khong where we stamped ourselves out of Thailand and crossed the Mekong in a longboat (wobbling from the wieght of our backpacks) into Laos.
Our next aim is to continue North to get deep into Laos.
We are up early to decide whether to catch the renowned-to-be-over crowded Louang Phabang longboat trip, or to try something a little less orthodox. We go for the latter, catching a sawngthaew to the bus station. Here we catch a minibus heading North East to Loang Namtha - This will be our first experience of Laos public transport.
At 9am, the white Toyota (blue and red go-faster stripes) chugged earnestly out of the depot, kicking up behind it a cloud of dust as a puppy ran alongside us bidding us farewell. The interior wasn't too cramped with most of the luggage stowed on the roof, although there was a fellow traveller sat on a blue plastic garden chair, wobbling in the aisle behind a few bags of rice.
The roads were surprisingly in
Do you want an aisle seat?
Not sure how the drinks would be served mind. good condition when the driver was actually putting the bus on them, he showed the desire to take the racing line around any sharp corners (which there were a lot). Although coming to think of it, this was preferable manoeuvre to overtaking lorry trains around uphill blind corners. One in particular seemed to be engaged in an ongoing feud with our driver as one gained the lead uphill, the other used the extra weight to his advantage challenging the lead on the downhill sections. I also think our driver was using the gears to make up lack of breaks at these points.
We do however create quite a lead from the juggernaut as we slalom our way through a heard of cows on the road at about 60mph, arriving in a town to collect some passengers and drop off some parcels. The aisle is now shared with a local, gaunt in the face and wearing what looks to be an old military jacket - fitted and with epaulettes, its fabric itchy and hessian looking. He looks back with a toothless grin of delight as he struggles to keep his high chair of three stacked blue plastic garden chairs upright
through the bends, comical in his unaccustomed height. Indeed even the larger, more sturdy passenger behind him is also losing purchase more often than not, backing into Emma on the uphills and then sliding forwards when we break.
The terrain became more hilly and paddy fields monopolised the lowland. Settlements consisted of mainly bamboo constructions and were scattered sparsely along the road. We stopped once more to unload more provisions on to be replaced by other provisions, and people, and people with other provisions.
An amply shaped woman sees a gap on the back seat where Emma is glad to signal as available seeing that her nearest passenger whom smelt of a combination of chicken left out of the fridge, body odour and urine (in her opinion) had been straddling two seats and moving closer to her on every bend.
You should of seen Emma the animal lover, mother of cat, recent elephant washer, photographer of stray dogs and staunch vegetarian's face with some blood-filled, intestine slopping plastic bag swung into her face and on her lap as this big hipped woman scrambled past our two garden chaired passengers to take her seat next to my girlfriend
Laos Bus 2
Note the buckets of live seafood infront. Don't go near the boot. with electric fan and carpet bag in toe.
She provided more than sufficient buffer from Senior Smelly with her bag of guts, floral and leather overnighter and electric fan as Emma was squashed almost onto my lap. Leaning forward to let my shoulders breath, I wondered what strange custom allowed electrical goods free travel as said fan had now found a seat next to the woman all by itself, heck it even had more legroom than me.
White knuckled, we arrive into Louang Namtha at 1.30pm, a few kilometres from the town centre (but they always are). Our connecting bus will be in an hours time so we decide to keep things moving, we grab some lunch and prepare for the next leg in yet another Toyota (this time sporting Blue/red colour blocking) which on the briefest of inspections looked slightly more robust and spacious than its predecessor. I only wished I had looked a little closer.
Although less passengers the bus is less clean with questionable stains on seats and headrests. There are some baskets in the front with little black legs poking through the holes, not chickens but bugs. Large hand sized insects with jet
black clawing legs, light brown and scaled under belly, scuttling, crawling, hundreds of them.
Based on this, we sit to the back of the bus. Fortunately the bucket of eels & bucket of fish are put on the roof. However, the baby that screams everytime his mother leaves him is not amongst the luggage, nor is his mother on the bus as at 3pm it leaves the station.
The wails and screams are forgotton purely down to a fragrance that preoccupies us now. Not disimilar to the motion-sickness provoking leathery smell of old cars, infused with the stench of rotting animal half consumed by maggot and fly, entrails pecked at and brain squished by some Bridgestone on a country lane on a summers day somewhere. Somewhere a Darian fruit or somehing most fowl was on this bus and possibly in the boot, right under our seat at the back of the bus.
Our remedy came in the form of Tiger Balm. Menthol and eucalyptas refeshed the pallette while the warm, numbing felt like antiseptic on an open wound. A perfect tip for any travellers. Forevermore I will carry this stuff around, a saviour against bad body odour,
smelly hostels and any confined space that long periods of time must be spent.
An hour into the journey, we turn off through a town and off the sealed road. Our swerving, bumping trajectory making travelling a little more uncomfortable than it already was.
3 boys stand roadside one with a dirty shirt open revealling a pot belly, their elder (presumably father) speaks to the driver and then hands over a dead fury thing stiff from riggermortus. We think it is some kind of stoat but it could be a cat. Whatever it is, it has now been added to the menangerie together with a group of 5 or so adorable childeren together with mother and father, and grandparents.
The landscape now sumptuously green, a low sun washes towns clinging both to hill and roadside with a soft, flattering light. Boys play a game of football, sticks as goals forced into the dirt as we bounce past on the erroded road. Just before dusk, we reach Oudomxai (a mere 76 miles in 4 hours) and rest our heads shaken, and very stirred.
Our next morning we catch an even smaller but far, far better smelling minibus
Footy
The boy in the check shirt? Definately Tottenham. to continue our journey East to the small town of Nong Khiaw. Limestone ridges grow from the ground green from vegetation, the land swallowing us in these giant teeth. Though the ride is bumpy, todays ride is far more bearable than the past two.
The view throughout this two day odessy has been beautiful throughout, this last leg, like a fine wine (as Swiss Tony would say) improving with age.
I will however have to close that 2nd bus in Laos of this vehicled marathon was possibly the worst journey we had been on yet.
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