Destination Laos: Part 19 On the Road (again)

On the road to Luang Prabang - have heard some good things from travellers coming the other way, so i was definitely looking forward to seeing the city. Met up with the Canadian guy and Dutch girl i met in the Plain of Jars - who had so kindly went to the morning market to buy breakfast for our road trip to Luang Prabang - we had fresh, lightly sugared baguettes, oranges, bananas, and even doughnuts for the 10 plus hour trip.


The sawngthaew we shared to the outlying bus station (4km away) was 5,000 kip each, a fair price which our driver quickly agreed to. Another thing i've come to notice and love about Laos - there is little bargaining and while you are almost always quoted falang prices, it remains very reasonable and fair to both parties.


Our ageing Hyundai bus was a blast from the past - I absolutely adored it. So very 80s, retro looking, a jolly shade of light green with red, yellow and blue stripes, very psychedelic indeed. To top it off, aces had been painted on the tyre guards, with a freshly plucked bunch of bright yellow wild flowers tucked into the front number plate for good luck - not very helpful afterall as we soon had a breakdown after the engine had barely warmed up.



The whole experience was dripping with reminiscences of Kerouac's On the Road - a very road trip experience with the gang from Phonsavanh bouncing merrily along at the back of the bus, rice sacks, green beans and all, breaking out the bread and passing bananas until the engine died some way out of town, disgorging everyone to the roadside where we went for toilet breaks, stretched and then sat around along the ditches that followed the "highway" until some Einstein could managed to repair the engine - i could never figure out how they do it. Some minor touches and kicking here and there and muttered curses, and there ya go, the engine roared back to life just as we were contemplating the possibility of spending the rest of the day stranded by the roadside telling jokes and getting bored of playing new card games of which rules were invented, forgotten and changed arbirtrarily every few turns.



Left: The mountain in full bloom - bright cheery yellow flowers growing wildly by the roadside.