Another Nearly Futile Lao Adventure:

I began writing this blog from my guesthouse room on 10 April 2006 after an exhausting, though not entirely productive, two weeks in northern Laos. The problem is that I never finished the blog as I became either too busy or too lazy (or a little of both) to muster up the energy to complete and post it – until now, of course, knowing that it has been too long since I have posted anything…

As some of you may or may not know, I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately, and in more ways than one. I am back in Laos for the Lao New Year (which, in classic Lao style, can’t really be nailed to down to a specific set of days. While the 14-16th are designated as official holidays here, most people tell me the New Year starts on the 12th, while others have told me the 15th!!) The Lao New Year should basically fall on the same days as the Thai New Year, but I made the decision to come to Laos over Thailand based on my absolute adoration of this country and people. However, after having to leave Ban Nong Bua, I have not entirely been the same, and have longed to go back to first place that has felt like “home” to me in many months. Let me clarify: while I do truly think of Chiang Mai as “home” at the moment, I have not spent much time there lately. Plus, while I do have a friend or two in Chiang Mai, I am largely alone in the days that I spend there, and I am alone while traveling. However, when I was in Nong Bua, I never felt alone. So many people looked after me and wanted to make sure all was well that loneliness was not an issue and I felt as if the town was both my family and friends. When I think of Nong Bua, I just think that I am a very lucky person. But this posting is not supposed to be about Nong Bua! Oh yeah! See, it is very clear how much I miss that place, and appreciate the people. OK, so it is difficult to go from that kind of environment to one of being a lonely, single traveler. To go from being part of a community to being just another falang to stare at, and then of course any actual conversation with an actual Lao (or Thai) person is a reminder of one’s status as single traveler.

Anyway, on top of dealing with these factors (oh yeah, I am supposed to be doing research??) I have been a bit sick as well. I got to Laos, and in fact all was going pretty well, and I was finding ways to spend time until the New Year. But suddenly I found that the weather was surprising cold in Luang Nam Tha, and before I knew it, I was sick! I was in Muang Sing, a town where I spent many days back in November, and I was entirely uninspired to do anything. It took a day or two to make the connection between my physical health and my mental health, but once I realized it, it dawned on me why I was so uninspired to even try to go visit any of the local wats (imagine – me, not wanting to go to any wats!). So, for a few days I completely took it easy, and did not even begin to try to push myself to get any research done. To top it off, as I recovered from my cold, my stomach did not feel all that great, causing me to want to spend each morning in my room and leaving me very not hungry and not wanting to eat anything. Who knows what I ate that left my stomach so unhappy, it could have been anything, although I think it was probably some bad water (perhaps tap water being sold as bottled water, who can know).

But instead of going on and on about these sordid details, let’s just say that in my desperation to find some inspiration, I decided to leave Luang Nam Tha and go to Oudomxai, a town not particularly known to be enjoyable, but I had never been there and thought I could try to check out some of the local wats.

I was feeling a bit lazy, I have to admit, and therefore I did not push myself to get to the bus station very early in the morning on the day I had planned to go to Oudomxai. I got up, packed, ate breakfast, and planned to catch the 12:00 bus. I left my guesthouse at around 9:45-10, and here is the problem – thinking that I didn’t want to spend hours waiting at the bus station, I stopped to get a cup of coffee. This actually did take longer than I expected it to, but it was as much my own fault as anything. I got to the bus station no later than 11 am, but the 12:00 bus to Oudomxai was already crammed full of people (special note to those readers who have not traveled on these buses: crammed full means literally no one can move around because people are sitting on makeshift seats in the aisles, standing in the doorway, etc.). It was definitely packed full, but I went up and checked with the ticket guy. I had to wait for the 2:30 bus. So much for getting there early enough and so much for not having to wait for hours at the bus station! I was hoping that maybe, just maybe the bus would fill up and leave early, but it did not happen. I think we would have left maybe 15-30 minutes early – the bus was full with everyone and we were ready to go, but we were waiting anyway until finally, we were off…

So, after we left the bus station, we picked someone up at their house, then headed toward the main road. All seemed well, but in retrospect the bus did appear to be moving a little slow. However, a slow moving bus is far from an oddity in Laos, where the pace of life is entirely different from our own and (believe it or not) not everyone is in a rush to get where they are going; in fact moving from place to place in a slow bus trying to make its way up a large hill or along an unpaved road is completely normal to Lao, although it might not be for too much longer. The buses in Laos are all second- or third- hand buses from Korea, China, perhaps Vietnam, so just making it to the next destination is all a travelers can really ask. Thus, the slow bus did not seem odd to me until we made it to the main road, about 20-30 minutes away from Luang Nam Tha, and we pulled over due to some kind of problem. I was not entirely happy about this, as I had gotten off to such a slow start this day and was hours behind schedule. But I was optimistic it wouldn’t be too long. After talking to the Canadian guy and a Lao guy from Vientiane who wanted to practice his English a little bit (perhaps about 20 minutes), we were back on the bus and moving along. But the pace was noticeably slow and after a short span of time, we pulled over once again, much to my chagrin. Bus definitely broken. Everyone filed off the bus, and reality soon sunk in that I would not be getting to Oudomxai before dark. I had wanted to get some exploring in the main town that same day, so I could get orientated and explore the surrounding area the next day, but it clearly wasn’t going to happen like that. The bus driver had once again crawled under the bus, looking at the engine, or whatever part of it was that was broken.

Soon, a bus pulled up that was heading in the opposite direction, and the driver and assistant got out to help our guys. A couple of them were underneath the bus, clearly discussing the situation. I was really hoping at this point that we could all just get on the bus heading back to Luang Nam Tha, and was about to inquire about doing just that when the next thing I knew, our driver had actually gotten on the other bus and it was driving away! It didn’t really dawn on me until the bus had gone around the curve and was out of sight. I just couldn’t believe it! Apparently it had been decided that either the engine had to be fixed with a new part, or we would have to take a new bus. The driver had gone back to Luang Nam Tha to figure it out. At that point we were pretty much stranded and there was no way of knowing how long it would take for him to return. The only thing I knew is that it was Laos, and thus the chance of there being a “spare” bus for our driver to borrow was close to zero. And there was nothing to do. I sat there and talked to the Canadian guy a little bit, and talked to the English-speaking Lao guy a little bit, and eventually got my i-Pod out and sat and listened to it. Everyone was thirsty and hungry, but no one showed exasperation, as that just isn’t the Lao way to handle things. I did bitch off and on to the Canadian guy, just because I was unusually frustrated and was missing Thailand. I had been in Laos for over a week, but for some reason I had not totally adjusted to being there (again unusual for me, since I wear my love of Laos on my sleeve at nearly all times). I knew if it had been Thailand, people would have been on their cell phones calling and trying to figure out how to get out of the problem. In Thailand, another bus would probably have been sent to come help us, or at least a songthaew (pickup truck with two rows of seating in back), or something. But it wasn’t Thailand, it was Laos. And the sun was setting.

(Photo, left, of view from road where we were stranded. Note the horrific deforestation, a result of the Chinese coming in and paying off Lao officials for the clearing of trees. This particular spot will soon be a Chinese-owned rubber tree plantation. It is tragic indeed to see the absolutely beautiful forests of northern Laos disappear each day at the hands of the Chinese, taking advantage of the Lao officials who are corrupt and in a very poor country whose citizens can do nothing to stop it.)

As dusk was settling around us, our driver came back on the back of someone’s motorcycle. He and the motorcycle driver set to work right away underneath the bus. They had brought some sort of replacement part with them, so they removed the old one and began to put the “new” one in its place (I must emphasize the quotation marks around “new” for those of you sitting at home, because I am positive that although the piece was new to the bus, it was definitely not unused. Again, this would emphasize not only the difference between rich countries such as the States and poor places like Laos, where people are incredibly resourceful). Basically, after a short time, the sun set and it was dark. We were still on the side of the road waiting. It was evident that they were working hard on the engine, but it was also clear that it would take a long time. The driver and the other man had a flashlight to enable them to see what they were doing. And that is it. No other source of light. I was slightly nervous at the thought that they were fixing the bus under those circumstances, but I was more anxious to just get on the way and get to Oudomxai.

Everyone was clearly getting hungry, as was I. It is ridiculous in retrospect – I always travel with food and plenty of water, especially in Laos, but for whatever reason, I had gotten on this bus with relatively little. As the sun disappeared, a group of guys from the bus gathered brush and started a fire. People gathered around, and it was clear they were cooking something. It turned out to be bamboo shoots, which are utterly delicious. They shared the bamboo with everyone, but there wasn’t much to go around. A woman from the bus came over and handed me an orange also, which was very kind of her. I felt so bad for not having anything to offer them. After that I completely zoned out from everyone and everything, and before I knew it, the bus was ready to go! I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t going to argue. I don’t remember what time it was when we were finally able to get back on the bus and get going, but judging from the fact that we got into Oudomxai at about 1 am, I am guessing we get back on the road at around 10 pm, and I know that we were on the side of the road for around six hours. Unbelievable, but a good lesson to me. I had been so focused on such petty things, feeling sorry for myself for who knows what reason at all, and I had forgotten to appreciate everything for what it was. That might sound slightly ridiculous, but I remember thinking about it at the time. I can’t really expand further on that notion or my thoughts about the lessons learned from that bus trip. But I can say that we did get into Oudomxai at around 1 am, and I had been quite worried that I would have to spend the night at the bus station with no sleep. Luckily, I was wrong, and I was able to stay at a clean, decent guesthouse right across the street from the bus station (with the help of the tuk-tuk drivers who knew our bus hadn’t come in yet and were waiting for it. They said to just go knock, and lo and behold, a teenager was sleeping near the door, probably exactly because of events like this. I felt terrible waking him up, but business is business after all).
I stayed in Oudomxai for only 2 nights because I did not want to stray from my schedule and miss anything important with the upcoming Songkran/Lao New Year festivities. So, needless to say, I did not get to explore as much as I had wished. Rather than get into any further details about Oudomxai or Lao New Year, I can just say that the trip back to Luang Nam Tha was far less eventful and, in fact, pretty normal (northern Lao standards only). That is, until we got to the turn off for Luang Nam Tha and the road was closed for road construction (road construction is a very common thing around Luang Nam Tha these days, as the Chinese and the Thai are improving the route connecting southern China with Thailand with little regard for its effects on the Lao population). Our driver was clearly not sure what to do, so he decided to take a turn-off further down the road that was a little fishy to me, with my small knowledge of the Luang Nam Tha area, and clearly many of the passengers thought it was a terrible idea as they “yelled” at him to not continue down the road. He continued anyway, and before too long, we found ourselves facing a very, very rickety old one-lane wooden bridge across the Nam Tha river. Not a good idea from anyone’s perspective. The driver stopped, stared at the bridge a bit, and even got out and walked onto the bridge before deciding it would be OK to cross. I was about to initiate the idea that all the passengers get off the bus and meet it on the other side, but before I knew it the driver was gunning it. I held my breath and the German guy sitting next to me turned white and closed his eyes. I can say it was quite frightening, but we did make it. I have included a photograph of the bridge that I took the next day, but it hardly captures it. And by the next day when I took this photo, new boards had been added to the bridge where there had been either gaping holes or rotting boards the day before.

Oh, traveling in Laos. Expect the unexpected. But regardless of the tediousness and often downright pain of the travel, know that you will be rewarded every time, because Laos is truly a wonderful place.