“VIP Bus broken”, my tour agency driver repeated. “VIP bus broken”.
“What are my alternatives”, I asked wearily. “Hunh?”, a quizzical look. “How do I go to Thakhek”? No response. . “Can I talk to your office?”. Still not getting through. “VIP bus broken”, he repeated.
I shifted uneasily in on the hard bench of the open pick-up truck that had been my transfer to the Vientiane bus station from my riverside guesthouse. Beads of sweat started to roll down my forehead in the still heat. I had been looking forward to stretching out in air conditioned comfort and watching the Mekong valley unfold around me on the5 hour drive to the provincial capital of Tha Khek .
I pointed to his cell phone and mimed a phone call. “Office”.
“Ah!”. He dialed and exchanges a few clipped words, then hands the sticky phone to me. I have the choice, the calm Lao voice intones, between private taxi, $160 US, or public bus, $10 US. I hesitate, eyeing the ramshackle blue diesel behemoth beside us in the yard, its windows open,
curtains askew. Oh, what the heck, I think… it might be good for a few anecdotes. “OK” I say to the driver, “Public bus”. I hand my backpack to someone who seems to want it, and climb aboard, choosing the window seat directly behind the rear door … more air circulation, maybe stretch my legs a bit, I reason, and watch the loading process progress. According to my ticket, we still have 40 minutes to go before departure.
Glancing towards the back, I notice the last 2 rows of the bus are piled to the ceiling with what might be apples in blue plastic bags – a potential avalanche should the bus stop short. A pair of young, saffron wrapped monks appear uncomfortably aware of their danger in the last functioning seats. A young couple climbs aboard and discovers all seats are taken. But rather than disembark, they shrug shy smiles and prop themselves up at the front of the bus. More arrive … “they’re going to stand for 5 hours?” I wonder to myself”. But then the ‘conductor’ (there are two, one lean, wiry and toothless, the other plump and official looking, in a blue dress shirt) pass in a number of red plastic stools. These are set up in the aisle, and 5 o6 6 people squat down on these precarious perches. It turns out they are the lucky ones.
A truck pulls up, and square, plastic-wrapped packages are heaved onto the floor of the aisle then topped up with square boxes. Next, bags of rice each weighing more than I’m sure I could lift, are dropped on top and tied to the metal poles. Each time a new load of cargo arrives, the people on the red benches stand, shift and resettle. Still more passengers arrive. A young women ties a pink plastic bag of food to the overhead bar and perches with her three little ones on the rice sacks.
As departure time nears, a few of us hop out to use the toilet one last time and buy bananas and bread from the vendors – not likely to get a meal on this flight!
Finally the bus lurches away from the platform… but before it can leave the yard, 3 young men in the latest asymmetrical Japanese haircuts, dash over and climb aboard. They seem content to squat on a few boxes in the remaining space by the exit door, clinging to the support bars at my feet.“Finally”, I think, glancing at my watch, “on our way”. If it’s 5 hours, like the VIP bus, we’ll be there by 7pm.
But the bus crosses the first intersection and stops. Two more women and several bags of luggage are shoe horned in. We stop 3 more times before leaving the built up portion of the city, and each time, the red stools shift a few inches closer together, and a few more people find perches on the bags and boxes in the aisle. Slim passengers lift arm-rests and squeeze a third thin butt onto a pair of seats. Luckily my tiny seatmate is a little tiger and growls when anyone impinges on our row – even poking a little girl’s bare feet with her toothpick when they stray under her arm-rest.
Dusk falls, the air cools. I place a protective hand on my knapsack between my feet. But I sense some cameraderie on this bus. Some complain when yet another passenger is loaded aboard (primarilyy from my seatmate the tigress), but most accept the situation with a shrug and a shy half smile.
In the end, the trip takes 8 hours. Not quite the relaxing cruise through the countryside I had anticipated, but I arrived in one piece. The skinny conductor knew exactly which of the various cargo holds my backpack had fallen into and I shared a pick-up truck taxi into town with a man carrying a bag of eggs, and a young temple boy named Nhoi.
Certainly an experience worthy of anecdotes.
-30-
