LAOS - There & Back Again

"Adventures make one late for dinner." - Bilbo Baggins

CONTINUE GUEST WRITER JUSTIN:

We witnessed a rare outburst of violence in the usually peaceful Thai lifestyle during that first bus ride.  The bus lackey who collects the fares got off the bus and into an argument with another local transit employee.  

Apparently the lackey from our bus didn’t want to give up her shiny money holder – a metal tube full of heavy, clanging change – to the other employee who seemed to want to take over the shift.  A lot of yelling ensued and I decided to play it cool and refrain from looking. 

The verbal argument and my dignified refrain ended with a loud rattling crash.  Nearly everyone in the bus scrambled to look out the window at the viscous brawl that had exploded.  The lackey was almost as big as I am, a real feat for a Thai lady, and she was pummeling the other woman with hands, head, feet and her change container.  The defending employee was smaller but faster and lashing out wildly with terror-invoking fury.  After the bigger lackey smashed the smaller woman’s head into the side of the bus in front of an array of perturbed spectators, the bus driver fearfully and reluctantly broke up the fight.  The driver and lackey returned to the bus and continued the drive.

The passengers, myself and Kassi included, carefully avoided eye contact with the panting lackey whose clothes and skin were dirty and torn from the wild brawl.

So, after a quite interesting and much delayed ride, we arrived at the bus station.  We bought tickets for a second class coach – mistake # 1 – and went to find a bite before we left.  By a bite I mean a few beers and it was very lucky we met Nick.

The bus station was a maze of market stalls and shops including, of course, five 7-11s.  None of the stores had large Chang (elephant) beers, our favorite brand, until we happened upon a fridge full of them.  We sat down at a table beside the blessedly stocked fridge and in a moment I heard an almost unfamiliar accent.

“Hey, what’s up man,” came a voice with the drawl of the south and the attitude of the urban west coast of America.  In disbelief I turned around and saw Nick.  Long story short, he took extra care to get us the coldest beers, three or four over an hour, and chatted with us about how he misses America.  He came back to Thailand to be with his mother as she lived her last elderly years, but expressed his view that, “No matter what, America is always number one, right?”

Hell yeah.

After a bit of bonding we parted, but not before he could give Kassi a beautiful bracelet and me a warm and delicious bowl of Thai food.  What a guy.

We found our bus and sat down, slightly buzzed and with one for the road.  The bus ride up the country was uncomfortable, unmemorable, but not unbearable, and we arrived to the border town of Nongkai in less than 12 hours.

The bus stopped to let us off at the turnoff to the ‘friendship bridge’ that crosses to Laos.  As farangs (foreigners), they knew where we were going and why and they sent us out of the bus and into the hands of a tuk-tuk driver who was miming a visa stamp and saying, “sah-tamp sah-tamp!”

We semi-reluctantly allowed ourselves to be swept away to who knew where.  We hoped to Laos.

Instead we ended up at a visa-run service business and we immediately refused, wanting to go our own way.  But their persistence that it was the only way to do a border crossing won over our tired minds and we less-than-willingly obliged.  The free coffee was nice, though.

They said it’d be 2,000 baht each, which at $66 sounded ludicrous.  While the workers were copying passport and filling out the necessary paperwork for an easy visa run, I realized we needed more money and set off to an ATM.  Realizing I forgot my PIN, we then set off to a place with Wi-Fi.  After only a little hassle, and a less than silent look from my beautiful wife about my terrible memory, we went back to the visa-run shop, collected our papers and passports, paid too much for the tuk-tuk, and hopped in a van bound for the border.

When we arrived I was glad to know that the 4,000 baht we paid wasn’t all a waste, as it included an apparent $35 entry fee for Laos that could only be paid in U.S. dollars.  As a matter of complete chance, we met our friend Amanda from ATI (the TEFL school) at the border.  She was also doing a visa-run.  Somehow she ended up in our van ad we continued as promised to the U.S. embassy in the Laos capital, Vientiane.

There was a long line for submitting the papers, and when our number was called, we were informed that all of our papers were old and we needed the latest editions of the forms for our visa application to be considered.  Stupid visa run agency.  So after another long wait and redoing all the ‘work’ that the agency did, we were able to submit our papers and leave the embassy.  The van was supposed to then take us to our hotel, which we booked previously through Agoda.com, but of course we never saw it again.  So Amanda, Kassi and I hailed a tuk-tuk and told him the name of our hotel, which Amanda decided she’d stay at, too.

As we were leaving, a young man who was just getting out of a van waved at us and ran over.  He had a big smile and asked if we knew any good hotels.  We told him we were going to one close by and he could join if he liked.  So he did and the three that was two became four. 

We got to the hotel and discovered there were only two rooms left.  Kassi and I took one and Amanda and Alex from London shared the other.  We soon discovered there was a big festival at the big temple, and we decided we should get some motorbikes and go check it out.  So we hopped in the back of a truck-like bus and headed to the downtown district if Laos’ small capital city.  We haggled for two bikes and started for the Pha That Luang temple to celebrate under the November full moon and show our thanks to God for sending the water that season.

The traffic was horrendous as half of the city was heading to thank the gods for the water they sent down.  After much weaving and winding and sidewalk-riding we found our way to a parking lot for the festival.  There were carnival-like games and little food stalls – the grilled chicken was exceptional – and when we got to the actual temple we were wowed by the juxtaposition of meditating monks and a dazzling fireworks display.  I’m pretty sure I was slightly buzzed, too.

Beer Lao, as it is aptly named, is very good.  It’s also cheap.  Even better.  There was one great advertisement in which a motorcyclist T-boned a car and his head smashed through the window.  It read, “drunk! don’t drive”.   That’ll make you thirsty.

Anyway moving on, we collected our visa-stamped passports a day later and left for Thailand.  Alex left for northern Laos and Vietnam, thus ending the brief but awesome reign of the Laos Riders scooter gang.  We were really cool.  Trust me.

We rode with Amanda on a bus back to Nong Kai, and then said our goodbyes as we transferred to different busses.  And so we finished our first and most pleasant of four bus rides that day.

Bus ride number two sucked.  It started by some random dude saying his bus was the last to Bangkok that day.  I thought there was one an hour later, but he offered a good price so I bought a Chang beer, a much needed tranquilizer for all Thailand bus rides, and settled in for what would become an absolutely unforgettable nightmarish bus ride.

The first stop was unexpected.  We went to a gas station after about an hour of driving.  Kassi and I were just falling asleep when the light went on and some obnoxious hard rock began to blare on the speakers.  The driver jabbered something in Thai and got off the bus.  We waited for one hour.

I was certain we must have broken down, but we eventually started again.  We were a little put off, but these things can happen once in a while.  Then it happened again.  Same lights, same awful music, just as we were falling asleep.  It was another hour stop.  What the hell.  Now we’re pissed.

Repeat that cycle about six or eight more times.  Lights on bright, terrible rock music shouting you awake, erratic and indecipherable yelling of the driver, unexplained stops of an hour or more.  I think he was on drugs.  His eyes were jaundiced and blood-shot with a wild look about them.  He yellow and black teeth barred in an ugly snarl.  His head moved in tweaky jerks.  Are we going to die?

Occasionally the bus stopped to let people off until it was only me, Kassi, and a monk left on the bus.  That’s when it happened.  The driver pulled over to the side of the road, turned on the now routine loud music and bright lights and shouted.  What now… 

Apparently he wanted us off, and we were nowhere near Bangkok. Naturally we didn’t move. As we watched the monk leave we saw that he was getting on a different bus.  Random place for a transfer, but this whole ride has been a bit unorthodox.  We were standing and collecting our things when the driver came and began shouting at us.  We were deliriously tired and his tone wasn’t helping.  But it wasn’t until he started hitting Kassi that I got pissed.  It was anything but a pat on the back.  I would say it was more like a frenzy of angry spastic raps.  Although he didn’t speak a lick of English, I told him quite clearly and very close-up that if he touched her again something very bad would happen.  He must have understood, because he didn’t touch her again.

We took our time getting off bus number two, the drugged-out driver shouting all the while, and when we finally made our way onto bus number three, we saw it was completely full.  Some seats were even packed with an extra person.  We were asked to squeeze in with uncomfortable but accommodating people, but we chose the more spacious floor.  And it was there that we sat, laid, and tried to sleep for the next 8 hours.

I was leaning back on my bag, and Kassi was leaning on me.  Occasionally we had to move for a person who was leaving.  Several grueling hours later, as it was beginning to get light outside, enough people had left that we could move to a seat.  We were very thankful.

We got to Bangkok and, yep, it was still flooded.  When the bus took what I assumed was the best exit, we found that we had to cross an enormous section of flooded roadway.  We saw a brave truck plow through at a constant speed.  The 200 foot stretch of flooded road was about four feet at its deepest.  Our bus driver drew up his courage and made for the charge.  He went too slow.

Inching along in first gear, the water got deeper and deeper all around until it came flooding in through the door.  We were a little more than halfway along when the engine flooded and we stalled.  For several minutes he turned the engine and dropped the clutch, gaining mere inches each time, but it wasn’t enough and I could feel the bus’s pain.  Upon realizing that his effort was futile, he stood up and made the announcement no one wanted to hear.  All the men began to stand.

“I think he wants all the men to go out and push,” Kassi inexplicably translated the driver’s request.  I took off my shoes without hesitation.  Kassi was the only woman who joined us.  Somebody had to take a picture, right?

So there we were.  Ten barefoot men pushing a 20-ton bus through three feet of dirty flood water in Thailand’s major metropolis.  Awesome.  Good times.

We got bus number three out of the water, but it wasn’t going anywhere.  So the good Thai people, never 

grumbling or getting down, collected their things and started to walk.  Are you serious?  I don’t even know where we are let alone how to get where I want to go.  Oh well, shall we walk?

The Laos Riders (from left to right)
Amanda, Alex, Justin, Kassi

Luckily another huge bus had mercy on us and picked us up.  We exchanged smiles with the bus driver and the passengers and made it to the station in a number of minutes.  Bus number four was the best.  

Thus ended the saga of our epic return journey from Laos.