It's a little windy up here

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A real travel experience happened 2 days ago coming back from this Don Det Island.

We began the day by getting up and having a bite to eat getting ready to make the journey 5 minutes across the Mekong river back to the mainland and then 146km's to Pakse, southern Laos.

After the boat ride which if someone shifted to fast could result in a capsized boat, we made it to shore. Then it was a mile trek down the road to catch the "bus".
Now we were under the impression that the "bus" was a BUS, it was infact a Sungtow, not sure on the spelling, but this is a truck with a roof over the back of the truck box. In a normal truck box if you had people on each side you might be able to get 5 or 6 on each side right??? Well now picture this as we walk around the corner to find 26 foreigners waiting to get on this "bus". The seating in the bus was a bench on each side and one in the middle, so now youare thinking 15 people at most, and that is stuffy, touching each others legs and pressed up against strangers. Well there was the standing room at the back right, yes but now we have 15 people in the 'bus' with 8 people waiting outside the bus for the popular satnding area, atleast you have the iwnd whipping in your face is the idea behind the standing area.
Well the girls were inside, Fiona and April and telling Sean and I to get in, however we wanted standing room. well all the people waiting for this cherished standing room, disgusted at the thought of jumping in the sweating jammed packed truck box ar simply saying there is not way this is going to work, for only 5 could possibly stand!!!
Well the driver has seen this scenario before I assume, because he decides to start driving and let the 8 people fight for the back...it seemed to work we all star piling on, and Sean and I and a frech girl are instructed to go up top!!! NOw we are on top of theis roofed truck with all the back packs, baskets of god knows what, a bike with baskets tied to it, and rise and other veggies. We are laughing thinking this is quite funny on the roof like this, but the novelty quick wore off as the 142km trek took 4 hours with us hanging onto straps for our dear lives at the truck swayed from side to side obviously with too much weight.
The real highlight came when we stopped at one point because a tire was getting low, a routine thing I guessed.
So after we check it, we start to go again, roughly 70 km's an hour wind flying passed, loud as a tunnel, Sean and I and the Frenchie were trying to get relaxed if that was possible with the though of tipping close in our minds.
That is when it happened, the noise you do not want to hear at any tme let alone on top of a 'bus' like this. POP!!!
The tire blew and started to really sway at this point, Sean and I and Frenchie had that look in our eyes like this is not happening.
Soon we came to a stand still and we all got off, and the truck had to go for a fix, so there we were off the side off the road 23 foreigners, all hot, sweating and thinking I wonder if he is coming back.
He did return, 45 minutes later and we climbed on again, and never said a word the rest of the way.
The next day we got up and took another bus, this time a real bus alomst 11 hours to Vientienne, the capital of Laos, some people reading these things, think it is all massages and beers, I guess this shows that is not always the case.
Home soon, 45 days ish, Oh my Buddha the thought of real life is more scary than that 'bus' ride!!!

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