Buses and Borders

Night buses. Our new favorite thing, because they save us time on our limited schedule, money on a place to stay for one night, and boredom because we can sleep and wake up in a new city or country. Night buses. Our least favorite thing, because they are not very comfortable, the roads are awful, deep sleep is never accomplished and we arrive in each new city or country slightly irritable and feeling very dirty.  They’re the cheapest, most logical option though, so we take one every week, sometimes twice. Upon boarding the night bus from Bangkok to Vientiane we were overjoyed to get the front seats on the upper deck, meaning lots of storage and leg room, and to see that the seats were more plush than others and came with blankets! The ride was going smoothly and I was about halfway through my $2 copy of Crime and Punishment when there was a loud ‘clunk’ and we slowly pulled over. The bus stopped and we peered out onto the highway below us. A man was angrily pointing to his car and yelling at our driver. “Oh my God…we hit a car,” was the collective gasp and whisper throughout the bus. We all waited, trying to get a better view, (good thing we had those prime front seats), as our driver handed the man money, to which he shook his head and made some phone calls. There were no police, no insurance companies, nothing written up. If this happened at home there would be all of the above, and someone would come on the bus and explain what was happening and give an estimated departure time. We just waited, until finally more money was handed over and our driver pulled away, not even acknowledging the incident to his amazed passengers. Then it started storming. How could we sleep in a thunderstorm, on crowded roads, with a driver who could hit something at any moment?  We managed to doze here and there before reaching the strangest border crossing yet. On the side of the road we filed out in the rain through a muddy field to a pavilion with coffee and a few picnic tables where a man and woman took all our passports and attached our visas while we huddled in small groups.  An hour later we reached a more official crossing where we showed our visas and got on a new bus to Vientiane. Due to weather, traffic and the accident, the trip took hours longer than expected, but at least we had a hostel lined up!

Our first night in Laos was uneventful. The rain didn’t let up for hours, so we napped and read and looked up activities for the next day. We did find a terrific Italian restaurant by the river for dinner though. We had read they had great pizza, but were a little skeptical. We ordered a goat cheese salad to share and a four-cheese pizza, and waited in anticipation. The salad was one of the best things we’ve had so far and we watched them make our pizza in a giant wood fire oven. We were surprised, and strangely delighted when our servers watered and resilvered between courses, (!!!). This is either a sign we’ve worked in too many restaurants, or that we get too excited over little things. The pizza was perfect and satisfied our hunger after 24 hours of buses and trudging through the rain. After this meal, we vowed to eat only Lao food the rest of our time here!