Luang Prabang to Muang Khua via Udomxai

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At the Bus station with plenty of time to spare. Just as well as the bus is going to be very full, even when we arrived people are sitting waiting for it’s departure. As the time grows near people are still arriving, more people, more goods to carry.

We end up crammed into our seats unable to move. Bales of goods are stacked into the aisle of the Mini Bus and we set off.

Stops are frequent as people on the bus finish their shopping; Paw Paws here, some Mushrooms there, maybe some birds here. The list goes on and the bus continues to get fuller. More stops, people getting on and people getting off. Bales, buckets, shopping bags come and go.

5 hours latter after travelling through some beautiful country we arrive at Udomxai, not sure if we are going to have to spend the night or able to get a connecting bus. We are in Luck??? A bus is due to leave in 1 ½ hours. Tickets purchased we relax over an Orange juice.

This turns out to be the bus ride from hell!

We are no more than 5 km out of town and the engine decides to conk out - it’s not sounding well.

Off the bus we get as the driver fiddles with the fuel line - no power going up hills at all. This continues for hours. At the bottom of the hill it conks out - we get off and walk to the top of the hill while he drives it up. We all get back on and drive as far as we can until it conks out again. Off we get again. This continues for hours.

One of the best was when we had stopped at a checkpoint and the bus would not start at all. Battery, so they start bashing the hell out of it resulting in a grand blue spark that went to the roof of the bus setting someone on fire.

I could go on with this storey for pages but in a nutshell a 3-hour trip ended up being 6 ½ hours - would not have missed it.

Arriving in Muang Khua at 10pm the whole town is asleep. There is limited accommodation to be had in the town so for the 8 of us that needed to find accommodation it was a matter of knocking on doors and getting people out of bed. Room secured for the night - no lunch - no dinner we go to bed to be ready for another early start in the morning for Dien Bien Phu.

That dog is gunna die if he keeps barking.

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Photos

Another climb up the hill
Just oneof many times we had to leave the bus so it could make it up the hill.