We were instructed to wait by a run down van until ours arrived. It never did. We had only waited fifteen minutes before we were told that said run down van would be our home for the next eight hours. Our "minibus" had apparently broken down on the way to pick us up. I imagined the condition of the thing given that the one we were actually taking was the reliable one. For a short moment, I felt a bit of gratitude.
We piled in with five other passengers and hit the road. Within fifteen minutes, I had already managed to piss the driver off. He had turned Laos radio on to a volume that the speakers, or my ear drums for that matter, were obviously not equipped to handle. After a few minutes of this, I realized that if I didn't say anything there was a good chance that we'd all end up clinically insane by the end of the ride. I tapped him on the shoulder and did what I thought was the universal hand signal for, "please turn it down a little." There must have been a misunderstanding because the look on his face went cold and he aggressively punched the power button with his index and middle fingers. The language barrier was intimidating, especially while he was concentrated on the road, so I decided it best to leave it at that. Plus, I welcomed the silence.
The first two and a half hours made me a bit nauseous. This stretch of the road made Lombard Street seem straight. The driver maintained a quick and steady pace throughout the entire thing. My head bobbled so much I may as well have glued my ass to the dashboard. I did my best to focus on the scenery which, again, made it all worth while. The jungle covered mountains and valleys, the small villages and their people -- it never gets old. A quick observation while I'm on the subject: the village people make babies like nobody's business. From what I saw, 60% of their populations were under the age of 10.
We took a much needed break at the first place that resembled a town. I emptied my tank and picked up some water and snacks for the road. After about 45 minutes, we were off again. That's what I thought anyway. As we turned on to the main road the driver pulled over and shook the steering a bit to indicate that the entire steering shaft had just come abnormally loose. He tinkered around with it for a while before coming to the obvious conclusion that he could not fix it with his screwdriver. He drove back into town and pulled in to a car shop. To his credit, I never would have recognized it as such. After a short and unnecessarily loud exchange, the mechanic reached in and shook the steering wheel to confirm the problem. The driver got out to make room for the mechanic to hammer a steel wedge between the floor and the shaft and weld it in to place. Once he was finished, he shook the steering wheel again showing off the quality of his workmanship. It barely budged. The last order of business was to spray water, from a water bottle with a hole in the cap, on to the fresh weld to cool it down. Our driver paid him what looked like the equivalent of $3, and we were off again. The entire process, from diagnosis to payment, took just over half an hour.
The second leg of the drive lasted just over two hours. The road was nearly the same as the first part, except that only half of it was paved. This minor detail was not reason enough for our driver to slow down. After a short while, I started to have fun with it. I imagined myself in a rally race hauling around blind curves, only with the added suspense of oncoming traffic. Plus, I couldn't help but think we were making great time.
It was around 2:30 pm when we got to our second stop. It wasn't much of a town but it happened to be the destination of two of the backpackers from our van. The driver opened the door for them. After they got out though, he stood there and stared at me in anticipation. I had been told that we would not arrive in Luang Prabang until after five, but the driver insisted that we get out. Here I was faced with a several problems. First, I forgot the name of the city Luang Prabang, so I couldn't tell him where I was going. Second, when he told me where we were, it sounded, to me anyway, a hell of a lot like the name of the place I had forgotten. Third, I had no idea how much time we had actually gained, so for all I knew, that very well could have been it. And forth, this guy already didn't like me so I had to be particularly careful with what I said.
After several minutes of awkward hand gestures, useless word exchange, ticket verification, and the works, I figured out what had happened. Apparently the taxi driver that brought us to the bus station in the morning only gave us a ticket to this place in BFE so that he could pocket the rate difference. The tickets are entirely in Lao so I had no idea. I couldn't possibly explain all this to our driver, who was probably friends with the taxi driver anyway, so I paid him the little extra he demanded and we were off again.
The last leg of the drive was relatively mellow. It lasted less than three hours and the road conditions were the best they had been. We arrived in Louang Phrabang around 5:30, giving us enough time to walk into to town from the station to find a guesthouse. But not before being harassed by the tuk tuk drivers who assured us that it was too far to walk.
I named this post after one of my favorite songs right now by Dispatch. My favorite part of the song is when they sing, "So close your eye-eyes, and get in the va-a-a-an!" I thought it was appropriate.
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