Busses in the Night

It started off with such promise. The merrily blinking lights, the shadow of night, and the memory of Vietnamese buses allowed me to believe this ride from Pakse to Vientiane (both in Laos) would be a comfortable ride.

Eleven hours into a 10 hour drive and the truth had long shown itself.

When the journey started I walked upstairs, barefoot as all buses in Southeast Asia seem to demand, cheerfully eyeing the wide fully reclined cubbies. More spacious than Vietnam's, I was as excited as you can get about a 10 hour ride as I approached my seat.

Our bus stopped on the side of the bus

A man sat comfortably in my space. That is when I noticed that every “spacious” seat housed two people which led me to ask the obvious question. The Dutch Duo in the cubby across from mine replied, “of course we share, welcome to Asia.”

My bed mate smiled cordially and offered me potato chips as we settled in.

The cool air that fooled me into the expectation that we had air conditioning, dissipated almost immediately, transitioning from chilled air, which I'd anticipated and prepared for- my fleece already wrapped around my arms- to clammy feverish heat. Suddenly, I was peeling the gray material off of my and praying for a breeze.

Hours into the drive, the bumpy road amplified the discomfort of the mattress, it grew harder and harder. I tried to to be mindful of the space I occupied even as I fidgeting in my utter wakefulness; meanwhile my bed-mate slept blissfully and occasionally batted me in the head or rolled over into my space.

I inhabited a space where darkness was pierced with fleeting bursts of light from headlights as we barreled down a the road headed for Laos’ capital.

Periodically we stopped on a seemingly random stretch of highway, the engine still running. Sometimes it would be a few moments, others times the minutes would stretch and we’d idle indefinitely. Then, without warning we’d amble off into the darkness again. At one such stop, six hours into the journey, my bed-mate quietly gathered his things and exited the bus.

FREEDOM!

With all of the space and no stranger beside me I set out to conquer sleep. All around me people were dreaming, escaping the bumpy road that would occasionally thrust me into the air or wrench me sideways toward the aisle and out of my seat.

Flexible as I am, I could not find comfort. Not flailed out int the middle of the bed face up, not face down. Not on my side, not at an angle. It was a veritable “Green Eggs and Ham story without the happy ending.

At some point exhaustion took me. It was one of those sleeps where consciousness just ends. Like walking off a cliff.

The first time I woke up it was more of a stirring, my eyes opened just enough to see the sky had transformed into a pale purple. Something was happening and in the distance I could hear muffled sounds...but sleep beckoned and I followed. The next time I awoke the sun was hanging low in the sky and casting orange light against the mountain in the distance. That sound I'd hear earlier calcified in my head, the sound of tools clanking. It was a familiar sound, the sound of a problem. The drivers were beating on some part of the bus I never saw.

At some point they called a replacement bus, and as it arrived we all scurried t collect our bags and secured a new seat. This bus was older, grosser, smaller. But in its favor, cold air blew through the vents.

At 7 am I wondered how long we still had, how far we were from a meal and a proper bed. Maps.me revealed we were more than 3 hours out. Four hours past our expected arrival.

This is not new. A week ago as I crossed over the border from Cambodia to Laos (the borer crossing where the bus operator scammed us all out of $15 and forced us to walk the kilometer from Cambodia through no-(wo)man’s land into Laos) I carried with me the fresh memory of the bus blowing a tire that was impressive in that it had not popped hundreds of miles back- so bald and frayed it was.

We four passengers climbed off, following the driver, and the men formed some kind of unspoken team (there wasn't a shared language between the three of them) and began unscrewing and pulling on the tire. They pulled and pushed and tugged for at least half an hour, maybe more. And when they finally made peace with the truth that it wasn’t coming off, they pushed the tire back into place- hole and all-screwed the lug-nuts back into place and we all scrambled back onto the bus and drove on as if nothing had happened.

Buses and roads in disrepair are often a companion of travel on a budget, providing a novel though not essential ingredient for interesting stories about the places I've been and the things I’ve seen.

A 10 hour drive turned 15, where I traded in one rock hard mattress for another, is not a particularly exciting story to tell, but I tell it anyway because not all travel is sexy but that’s ok.