Laos And Bus From Hell

G’day all,
Well I’m currently on the train back to Bangkok after a few fine days in Laos and a 24 hour bus ride I will never forget. After arriving back in Hanoi from the boat cruise I pretty much jumped straight onto a 22 hour (ended up being 24 hours) bus ride to the Capital of Laos called Vientiane. This bus ride has a bit of a reputation as being the “Ride from Hell” and bugga me did it live up to its reputation. It started off all being fine as we got onto a brand spanking new bus and had a nice smooth 4 hour ride down the coast of Vietnam. This is where the fun stopped as I had to switch busses to head west to the Laos border. The bus we switched onto was chockablock full and me being the lucky last on the bus had to join the cue sitting on a 20cm plastic stool in the isle of the bus. After 10 minutes my back started aching. After an hour my back was killing me as I couldn’t lean back unless I wanted to fall off my chair. This English guy and I started to count the hours down until we would arrive and when we worked it out to being a good 17 hours we started to panic. After about 2 or 3 hours I tried to stand up for a bit to give my legs and back a rest before this Vietnamese mongrel told me off and I nose laughed and said sorry mate and sat back on my torture stool. The thing that really ticked me off was that the driver had 6 helpers who did sweet bugger all and took up all the seats, one of whom had his hammock stretched across the baggage holder and I wasn’t even allowed to stand up because it was “too dangerous”. It was impossible to sleep and a few hours after we crossed the border some people got off and I finally got a seat just a few hours before we got there. I felt like the queen with my new seat that I could actually lean back on and soon fell asleep. After a few minutes of sleep the tyre by my window exploded and it sound like a bomb going off and almost gave me a heart attack. So we finally arrived and I immediately took to Laos as the people were so nice and friendly and it was such a nice change after being in North Vietnam. There wasn’t much to do in Vientiane so I just chilled out with my English mates from the bus and we all spoiled ourselves and had a massive expensive pizza each. The next morning I jumped on a tiny 4 hour bus ride north to one of the coolest places I’ve even seen called Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is this tiny little town sitting amongst these amazing limestone cliffs and this beautiful flowing river. This town is a hit with the backpackers as it’s so chilled out and it’s famous for tubing down the river through a sea of bamboo bars. When I arrived I just walked around and took in the strange atmosphere the town gave off until the sunset and then had an early night. The next morning I went on a cave and tubing tour which was so cool. We went through 4 caves including a water cave which we tubed through on a tractor inner wheel tube. After lunch we did a 3km tube ride down the river which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The river is lined with bamboo build bars every 100 meters and they pull you in with a bamboo stick to come and buy a beer from them or take it down the river with you. Almost every bar also had a massive swing or zip line for all the customers to launch themselves from frightening heights into the river. I did it twice and it was such a great rush. I got a bit cocky after my perfect first jump and tried a “Napoleon Dynamite” dance move in the air on my second attempt. It didn’t pull off too well and I ended up face planting it in front of a good 50 odd onlookers. It didn’t tickle either being from such a massive height. We arrived back into town just before sunset and I chilled out with a few of my new mates from the tour and had some more beers. The town goes into shutdown at 11:30 at night and everything shuts and it pretty much turns into a ghost town. I’ve heard rumors about tourists being marched to bed by machine gun if they stay up after 11:30 so I made sure I was back to my $3 a night bungalow in time. I found out Laos is the most bombed country in the world and apparently in the South (which is scattered in land mines) many kids die each year from trying to sell grenades to tourists as war memorabilia. Well it was a short but sweet visit to Laos and I would recommend anyone to come and visit this amazing country. Tomorrow (Friday) I fly off from Bangkok to New Delhi in India so I’m really excited about that. That’s all for now legends. Update you next from the land of curry, camels, and cow worshiping.

Oorooo
Woodsy