Held Up!

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October 1997: The Road ahead was long, dusty and windey, The Bus crew had taken ages to pack it full of its wheat,rice,goats, chickens and human cargo for the trip to Luang Prabang. With no room to stretch on the long journey ahead I had proposed to the driver that I could sit atop of the bus for a while? A crew member stepped in and informed me that they could no longer do that because 2 french travelers a month ago had been shot and wounded by Rebel soldiers in the area and they were targeting foreigners more often.
I'm not arguing with that so I took my place in the bus amongst the wheat bags. As night fell the darkness overwhelmed the bus as if we were traveling through space, the jungle so thick was like a dark cloud surrounding us. Abruptly the bus came to a sudden halt and people were shaken from their sleep, voice surrounded us and the passengers remained quiet, while the driver spoke to someone through his window. I couldn't see anyone but I know what a AK47 looks like and there was certainly one being brandished at the driver. He seemed pretty calm and turned around and rattled off some things to us at the back. I was sitting with a English girl Sarah, who sat wide eyed but very still, we kept looking at each other and the thought of us being foreigners and good hostages was racing through my mind. The locals all started pulling their bags apart searching for something. I pulled out my wallet and told Sarah to do so too, I thought at least we could do was bribe them? Notes and cigarette packets were hurriedly passed up front and handed over, and within seconds they had disappeared back into the jungle. The driver started up and we slowly moved on, my heart still racing as was Sarah's. A young girl behind us started talking to us in English, she said that they were telling the driver that they would shoot people if we didn't hand over money and cigarette's, phew hey lucky for us then (sarcasm), petty thieves with guns needing smokes. In hindsight worse could have happened and other areas may have contained politically motivated types? We had a armed escort from Vientiane to Vang Vieng on the previous bus trip, a soldier was stationed in the back of the bus with us, but this trip we had no-one, it kind of makes me think that the driver may have received a cut on this particular leg, I'll never know?

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