Laurie's World

Yes I did! And an adventure it was…if we have learned one thing in the last few years it is to take everything they tell you here with a grain of salt (or maybe some sugar). When we booked the bus trip yesterday…I asked the guy a couple of questions.

1) will I have my own seat?
2) do you promise?
2.a) and not on a stool in the aisle?
3) is there air con?
4) will it stay on the whole way?
5) even after we leave town?
6) do you promise?

What I learned today was maybe to ask a couple other things…

7) will the bus leave on time?
8) how many times will I have to change buses?
9) does 5 hours mean “5 hours” or does that mean 7+ hours?
10) will we pull off the road somewhere and have to watch a young lad turn a hose on the brakes?
11) will there be wheel bearings and miscellaneous bus parts in a bin at the front of the bus and if so why?

So perhaps I am giving a wrong impression here….it really wasn’t so bad. To answer the questions

1) yes I had my own seat
3) yes there was “air flow”
4) no, it will definitely be turned off
5) not as soon as we leave town, but certainly as soon as we have to start climbing up into the mountains

7) not even close to leaving on time–in fact 1 1/2 hours late leaving
8) change buses one time–so all in all not too bad since it was before we left the bus depot
9) 5 hours means WAY more than 5…it means 7+
10) yes….”we” will be hosing off the brakes
11) yes…no idea why, but thanking God we did not need to dip into the bucket of spare parts at any point, despite our concerns when we smelled smoke, saw the young boy dangling out the door window to keep his eye on “something”, heard noises that can not be attributed to anything but tired old bus.

The nuts and bolts are that we were picked up promptly at 8:35am by a tuk tuk driver who ran us over to the bus station just as promised. We then went and turned our voucher from travel dude into bus tickets just as promised. Then we waited and waited and waited. There was a tonne of confusion, miscommunication and and general crankiness at the depot with a large group of young tourists who were promised a minivan ride and were reluctant to get on the VIP bus. Now this I can hardly imagine as the VIP bus is a more upscale experience that riding anywhere in a minivan…but they did not know this i guess….and a couple of loud, finger pointing tourists spoiled it for the whole group, they were afraid to get on something they had not booked as they thought that they were potentially not going to be allowed back on if they got off at a stop or something….or at least this is what we gathered. As it turns out, very few of the people on the bus actually bought VIP tickets…they were mostly minivan customers who just kept their mouths shut and did what they were told.

So here is our first bus and a picture of us getting settled in….

Yes indeed…things are going well…..then we wait and we wait….

Oops, we have to change buses…it is about 10:30am now (1 full hour past departure time)

So here is our new bus….and you can see I am still happy and smiling for the camera…but my travel companion is looking less than thrilled (yes….he did lobby hard for a private car….but I shut him down)

Maybe he is upset bcz we now have the last 2 seats on the bus and they are not side by each….but across an aisle?? Can’t think what else might be upsetting about this day so far

; )

The random looking dude popping into the photo is Bruce…more on that later….

So 10:55am and we finally “have a driver”, a bus that the “government will allow”, and “no more spare seats”, and any other host of rumors/excuses that were passed around while we were waiting! The crowd bursts out in applause…literally they did! It was hilarious…

The road had been described to us as windy, bumpy, narrow, scary, etc….and it was all those things and more…but I stayed pretty calm after at least 2 people had told me (and I quote) ” this driver is so much better than the last time I made this trip….he is going very slow…I feel safe”

Yeah!

So the good news is, we made some more new friends, Jackie, Bruce and their teenage daughter Stephanie. They are American (Bruce) and British (Jackie) but they live in Australia (therefore Stephanie is Australian). So when we stopped for “lunch” we all sat together and had some local Lao buffet food….hmmmmm!

It was a charming little road side atmosphere…where it cost 2000 kip to use the squatty potty!

It was right at the tip of a hair pin curve in the road…I stood in one spot and took 2 pictures only slightly moving the camera….you can see how blind this corner is.

If I knew how to put 2 pictures side by side in this blog….then you would be able to see it better…but this was what it looked like if you stood at the stop and looked one way and the other.

This was the view from the window of the diner.

Totally mind blowingly gorgeous! It looked like this the whole way! As we wound our way back and forth across the mountains.

I also made friends with my seat mate…a french fellow who spent up until lunch time dozing (mostly in my personal bubble) and after he woke up was desperate to practice his english. So we chatted most of the rest of the way. His name was Arnaud, he is 21 and an engineering student going to university in Paris.

So about 4:30pm, (5.5 hours in) we pull into what we all think is the bus depot in Vang Vieng. So everyone gathers up their bags and gets off bus. But we don’t really seem like we are in a town or that there is any tuk tuks for transport to hotels or main street. But nope….nothing….then we see the young boy who has ridden along pulling out a hose from the building and starting to spray the wheels?? Really?? Washing the bus? Is that really important at this time? Then Troy says….he is spraying the brakes to cool them down…uh…really! Yup really….I guess the work out on the brakes coming down out of the mountains is so intense, they can’t cool themselves….and this is normal here…

Wow…I feel SO much safer now that they have tended to this…

So then we all get back on the bus after most folks have had the chance to buy overpriced ice cream bars from the lady inside….and we carry on….1.5 more hours!

I think the drive CAN be done in 5 hours by a crazed maniac driver hopped up on red bull….but we have the uber cautious safe driver that takes 7 : ) best in the long run….but it was a long day…10.5 hours start to finish for us!

Here is the proof I was VIP for a day…it says so right there on the front of the bus…

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2012 at 8:19 am and is filed under Thailand 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.