The Very Interesting Bus Ride
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
14
69
Trip End
Apr 12, 2005
Huay Xai to Luang Namtha, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, June 24, 2004
I spent my first night in Lao in a little border town on the river called Huay Xai, and in the morning rushed off to the bus station to catch the 9:30 bus, which didn't leave till, oh, 11:45. But I had a fun time watching everyone--and I think everyone was watching me watching them, cause I was the only foreigner around, ooohhh, shades of Myanmar/Burma.... I watched two guys for about 30 minutes as they hauled a motor bike up to the top of the bus and anchored it standing fully upright, perpendicularly (?) across from side to side of the roof. Hmmm, looked a bit precarious...At about 11:40 a tuk tuk roared up and 3 Brits walzed onto the bus and then we left, the bus seats having all been filled then--the Lao version of efficiency
00-thai-lao border at mekong (thai side)
. Makes a lot of sense from a certain perspective...We were off to Luang Namtha, a crossroads town in the north between China and Myanmar/Burma. It's got a reputation of being a good base for trekking in the hills to see the beautiful forests and experience a bit of village life with Hmong, Akha, and Khmu tribes. We had no sooner started then we stopped about 100m down the road for petrol (this seems to be the basic bus itinerary in SE Asia). And in the next 10 km's we stopped no less than 6 times for people getting on and off, people loading up huge bags of goods, or animals, or babies, or all of the above, and at least one toilet stop for the men, who piled off and to the side of the road for a quick 20-second pee. Sucks to be a woman in these instances--we all held it... :) We screamed around corners and down bumpy stretches of the dirt mountain road, and every time we took a sharp right corner with enough speed, my seat started to flop up, as the right side of it wasn't bolted down! The guy sitting next to me had to make desperate grabs for the window to keep from being tossed into my lap, and I had to put my foot down in the aisle adn grab the luggage rack above my head to keep from being tossed across it onto the lap of the woman sitting opposite me, a good exercise for reflexes.
Then about 25 minutes later we slammed into a small crater and something incredibly loud popped under the back of the bus. Oooops. We stopped on the next flat area and watched the driver and ticket guys pull out huge coils and discs from under the back right tire. And systematically fix them and put them back together again--amazing. Can't imagine any driver or ticket collector in the west being able or willing to do that. Or passengers who would be able to wait patiently for over an hour while they did (without suing afterwards)
01-the boat that took me across the mekong
. The Brits turned out to be really nice, and they provided some entertainment for passing village kids as they played with their Game Boy. About 20 minutes after piling back onto the bus and roaring along the still bumpy, windy dirt road (how did the motorbike stay up there????), another crater, another pop, another stop, another pull-apart-and-put-together session. Hhhmmmm, this was supposed to be a 6-hour trip, but leaving 2 hours late, plus regular repair sessions, oi, we won't get to Luang Namtha till midnight at this rate. It was a shorter fix time, tho and we were off within 45 minutes or so, holding our breaths, waiting for the next pop....which didn't happen! We actually drove for about 2 hours or more and then stopped for lunch. Whew! But as we were sitting there in the barn/cafe, the bus drove off down the road without us...HEY! But it only stopped about 50m down the road, whew. When we wandered down about 20 min later to get back on, we found the driver and ticket guys under the bus again, this time with a welding torch, reattaching or repairing something under the front wheels. Hokayyyy.... Another 30 minutes and then we were off again, hoping everything stuck together.
The rest of the trip was uneventful as far as bus repairs go, thankfully--a true testament to their ingenuity and welding skills
02-breakdown #1
. The countryside scenery was absolutely gorgeous, with only small bamboo villages interupting the vegetion now and again (many with solar panels on poles outside the huts!). We did have to pile off the bus at one point tho, and watch them rebuild a log bridge to cross a small stream. The bridge was in quite a large dip in the road, and after the front end had wobbled over the logs, the back end crashed into the dirt and scraped a huge gash into the road as it dragged along while the driver gunned it to get up the incline on the other side. So THAT's why they asked us to get out. And we had been wondering earlier at one of the breakdown breaks (!) why the rear bumper looked as tho it was disintigrating...We got to Luang Namtha pretty late, but safe and with some good stories. And really, it was a very good bargain as well--10+ hours for under $7, not bad!
Now for some trekking...
