The Bus Ride That Wouldn't End

One last crazy story. We took the "VIP" bus from Luang Prabang back to Vientiane before flying out. Rule of thumb: always add 2-3 hours onto the length of time they “tell” you it will take. Our 8-hour bus ride was 11 hours!!! It was actually a comfortable bus, but of course we had some drama. We showed up 30 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart and were informed that our reserved seats on the 8:00 bus had been sold and the bus was now full. WHAT!?!?! Not fair! A young kid who is the bus driver’s assistant sold our tickets to a big group tour that needed a few extra seats – ugh!

We had arranged our tickets 4 days prior and believed that we should ride on this bus. Finally after being blown off for 25 minutes, the manager got on board and agreed that this was a problem and at least acknowledged that we had valid reserved seats on this bus. We camped out on the bus: me and the kids in 2 seats, while Christian tried to work things out. It was a mess and so uncomfortable. Since we had paid for 4 seats, we could have opted for taking a later bus, but there was no guarantee that those seats hadn’t been sold either. In hindsight I think we would have handled it differently.

The bus took off as Christian stood in the aisle. They were trying to tell Christian that they would give him a plastic stool to sit on in the aisle – that wasn’t his idea of fun for 7 hours. Then they told him they’d give him a cushion and he could sit on the stairs – he wasn’t going for that either. Christian announced to the young dude who sold our seats that he was taking his seat – shotgun to the driver with his knees up to his chest (Lao people are a bit shorter than Americans). So, Christian rode next to the bus driver and opened his water bottles for him, changed out his CDs for him, etc. It was a 2-level bus with driver and luggage below and passengers up the stairs. Christian felt justified in taking the young guy’s seat, but got a little worried when at the first stop, one bus helper got out of the bus with his AK-47. (In the past, Laos has had problems with bandits along the roadside.)

When we stopped for lunch Christian filled me in on all the gory details of that morning…and this is where I am still laughing my guts out with tears streaming down my face. Apparently the bus driver had a young friend who came along. I don’t think this kid had traveled by car or bus before and was VERY carsick! Christian heard the noises he was making and knew exactly what was happening. The bus driver and others in the front smelled something strange and looked around like: what IS that? Christian pantomimed what had happened and they all got disgusting looks on their faces and started searching for a plastic bag to give him. He continued to wretch and dry heave for the next 4 hours until the road straightened out a bit.

Later the poor kid suffered from a bout of diarrhea in his pants and that explained why suddenly the door opened up for about 5 minutes as we were cruising down the highway – they were trying to air out the front of the bus. This was followed by an overzealous spray of air freshener. A girl sitting on the stairs kept putting a menthol stick in her nose and sniffing it every few minutes. I thought maybe it was to prevent her from becoming motion sick. Later, everything made perfect sense and I’m still laughing at the hilarity of the situation.

Finally in Vang Vieng (3-4 hours from Vientiane) some passengers got out and Christian was able to grab a vacant seat. Crazy, crazy bus ride! At least we can all laugh about it now.