Visit to Ken's Village: Part 2 - Pha Dang, Laos

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Continued from Part One:


Around six, Ken started asking us if we'd be upset if the bus didn't come to bring us back to town tonight. We responded curiously. Um no, we said, we wouldn't be mad, but we'd prefer if there was a bus. So, um, is there a bus? He wasn't sure if there would be a bus.

It started to get dark and we began to resign ourselves to sleeping in the village when all of a sudden the bus pulled up. We were thrilled, because as great of a time as we'd had in Pha Dang, there's no running water or electricity there, as in most villages. The bus doesn't have a schedule, we learned; if the bus driver feels like returning to the city, you're in luck!

We hopped in with a family of five and two other men. Then some other guys started loading huge sacks of rice in to the truck behind us. As the truck filled up with rice sacks, the men requested we dismount so they could load more in. OK. When they finally finished, the bed of the truck was stuffed with rice sacks, leaving only a small space by the rear. Four people were able to sit on benches, four of us sat atop low stacks of rice, and the two men stood, hanging off the truck. We were off!

About an hour later, the truck broke down. We sat and waited patiently, as its not the Lao way to question or fret, and the bus started again. About ten minutes later it broke again. The driver, his assistant and the two men were all at work trying to fix the truck so we just hung out. Ken didn't think it necessary to ask the men what was happening, so we just did as the others did, and waited patiently. It was pitch dark and the sky was flooded with a trillion stars. There were three cute kids and a puppy to look at, though all four were very sleepy. A man on a motorbike showed up and took the driver back to a village to look for the necessary part.

He came back awhile later without the part and we started to think we should try to flag down a truck to get in to town. It was about eleven and this was back when we both lived at guesthouses that closed and locked up at eleven-thirty. We also believed in the town curfew of the same time, which we've since found out is fairly optional. After about thirty minutes a truck came by and although very reluctant to carry falang, foreigners, let us climb in its bed, atop a pile of bamboo logs. The drive back was about twenty minutes, very cold, and intensely beautiful with the dense darkness and the blanket of stars above us. We dropped Ken at his place in town and walked back to our guesthouses. It was late and we felt clandestine, like we had a wonderful secret between us, this fabulous adventure we'd had that no one else knew about.

By the way, that entire family of five hopped on a motorbike together to get home. They left their puppy on the broken down truck though, to come back for the next day. Ken said the little dog was just food anyway.

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