Mark’s Vagabonding Blog

About a minute after the dubbed kung fu movie ended, the lights inside the overnight bus from Vientiane, Laos to Pakse, Laos went off, engulfing us in darkness. Thirty seconds later, her head found my shoulder. It had only rested there a minute before she realized it, and she straightened herself back into her seat. Twenty minutes later my shoulder became her pillow once again. This time it lasted for about an hour. And we still had about 7 hours to go.

Three or four days earlier, after spending the better part of a month with June in Bangkok–shooting and selecting pictures to show you guys (see my last 3 posts)–I’d said goodbye to June, and to Bangkok. I boarded the 8:45pm train to Nong Khai, Thailand, one of the 5 border towns from Thailand into Laos. The scheduled 12 hour trip took more like 14 hours, but I was in the sleeper car, which I was lucky to get. I procrastinated in purchasing the ticket, and when June first called they said the sleepers were all booked. But she called back after finding out that all the buses were booked too, and they said they had added more cars. So I went alone to Hua Lumphong station to buy the ticket, letting June sleep. I got a ticket on the preferable bottom berth for 658 baht (approx $16.50 US). Then I came back to June’s to spend our last few hours together.

The beds are actually quite comfortable, as long as you are under 5’8″ (I mean the beds on the train). But it is still very difficult for me to fall asleep on them. I was at the end of the car where the noise is the greatest, plus it can be a very jarring ride. And even if it was a smooth ride I would still have to contend with the snorers, who have obviously done this many times before.

So I arrived at Nong Khai at around 10:45am the following morning, on no sleep. A short 20 baht (50 cents) tuk tuk ride later, I was at the border. Those devout readers of my blog know that the last time I departed Thailand by land, I had quite a harrowing experience (If you missed it here’s part Part 1 and Part 2 of my crossing into Cambodia. Very good reads I’ve been told.). But the crossing here is a bridge called the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge, so you wouldn’t expect any trouble here. And for the most part there wasn’t. I did get ripped off however, but not here.

I purchased my Lao visa in Bangkok. I think if you get your visa at the border it is only good for 15 days. If you get it ahead of time it’s good for 30 days, for the same price (but don’t quote me on that). So I went to the Lao Embassy in Bangkok, which is a short taxi ride from June’s apartment, to get the visa. The visa cost $35 US. There is an option to get it within an hour for an extra $5, or pick it up the next day for no extra charge. But they don’t really give you the option. It all happens so fast that you’ve paid the $5 and you wait an hour for the visa. And that’s fine because it saves you another trip, but since I was kind of close to the embassy, it would have been cheaper for me to come back the next day. But most tourists in Bangkok are not staying where I was so it would make sense for them to get it that day. But I accepted it, what the hell, I might as well get it over with now. But that’s not where I got ripped off.

When he told me the price he said, “1600 baht.” But I didn’t think I had that much baht on me so I asked if I could pay in US dollars. He said, “Forty-two dollars.” Again, it all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to calculate everything in my head, and I was thinking in terms of baht to dollars, not $35 + $5. I gave him a $50 bill, and he gave me 320 baht back (approx $8). Yes, that’s $42 dollars like he said, but that’s also $2 more than it should be: $35 + $5 = $40. This rip off was opposite from the Cambodia rip off. It cost more to pay in baht there.

But the actual crossing was a totally opposite experience from the Cambodian crossing. Having already secured my visa, I could go directly to the booth without applying for the visa on arrival, known in these parts as a VOA. When the officer stamped the entry visa on my passport, he only stamped it for 15 days. I said, “Isn’t it supposed to be thirty days?” He looked at it and said, “Oh, yeah,” and he changed it. Then in all sincerity, he said, “Sorry about that.” I said, “That’s Okay.” Then I kissed him. Okay I didn’t kiss him, but I wanted too. Those Cambodian guys can learn something from this guy. Well, it is called the Friendship Bridge after all.

Next, I needed to get to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. That’s where I would be staying for next 3 days. It’s about 23 km away from the border. On the grounds of the border station there is a company offering transpoartation to Vientiane, but I knew there was a cheaper way. I kept trying to get the girl to tell me where the cheaper rides were, but she kept pushing hard for me to use her service. Finally I walked away. There was a duty free shop across the street, so I headed there to get something to snack on (I didn’t have enough time to pick up anything in Bangkok before I left, so I hadn’t eaten anything in a while. June and I had to run through the train station in Bangkok to catch my train. It’s our standard practice). On my way to the shop I noticed a bunch of tuk tuks across the street from it. One of them was about to leave, and the driver waved to me. I decided to forgo food for another few minutes and take the ride, since this must be the cheaper transportation I was looking for. And I know they only leave once they’re full, and this one was full. I walked over to the tuk tuk and asked the driver how much. He said, “One dollar.” I repeated it and he nodded his head yes. That’s 5 times cheaper than the lady was asking.

When we arrived in Vientiane, I handed the guy a one dollar bill (They accept U.S. Dollars, Thai Baht, and Lao Kip here). He wouldn’t take the dollar, he wanted more. I reminded him that he said one dollar. He took out a Thai 20 baht bill and put it with the dollar, his way of telling me that’s how much he wanted now. After a little back and forth, I gave in and took out a 20 baht bill and gave him the one dollar and twenty baht ($1.50). I’ve been ripped off a lot on this trip. Fifty cents here, a dollar there, two dollars at the most, but it all adds up when you are trying to make a small amount of money last a year.

Anyway, I spent and uneventful 3 days in Vientiane, a nice little town. I did spend a little too much on accomodations though: $10 the first night, and $8 the next two. Well, I wouldn’t say it was totally uneventful. I did go to the ATM machines and withdrew 3,000,000 Kip. No, I didn’t type too many zeros. I’m a millionairre!

If you look at a map of Laos, you will see that Vientiane is in the middle of this long and narrow country. So I had a decision to make. How am I going to explore the country? Ultimately I decided to go to the extreme south first and work my way up to the mountainous north, where I’ll have a choice to either go to Vietnam, China, or back to Thailand (Which I really haven’t had a chance to explore yet, even though I’ve been there for 3 months on this trip) next. So I bought a bus ticket to the southern town of Pakse, a 10 hour overnight ride. This is where I should have come into Laos from Thailand in the first place. Saving me this trip. I belieive I got ripped off once again–this time by the lady at my guesthouse–on the price of this bus ticket. But it was my own stupid fault so I accept it as that. And this is where we entered this story.

My assigned seat was in the back of the gigantic, upscale, 32 seat, VIP bus. Curiously, the back seat patrons are not as highly valued as everyone else on the bus. The seats don’t recline as far as the others, and oddly, our blankets were inferior to every other seat’s blankets. I was one of the first people on the bus, so I was able to see and feel the other blankets. They were thicker and softer than ours, and their’s were all purple while ours were green. This further makes me think I was ripped off. The ticket cost me 190,000 kip (approx $19.00 US). You would think they’d charge less for the back seat, since they show the inferiority with the thin, coarse blankets. The lady knew I was getting the back seat (she told me), and I think she still charged me more than what a regular seat was worth. I’d seen signs at other places for less, but this is why it was my fault. For some reason I thought one of the signs I saw said 190,000 kip, but when I went back to look at it again after purchasing the ticket from my guesthouse, I saw that it said 170,000, not 190,000. I’m starting to get loopy.

In the other two back seats were 2 girls from Austrailia (The only other foreigners on the bus), and next to me was a middle-aged Lao woman.

I didn’t really mind that she was using my shoulder as a pillow, but this was going to be a long ride. Almost immediately after removing her head from my shoulder after having it there for an hour, she pressed her entire body against mine, and turned the other way, now pressing her ass against me, as if she wanted me to spoon her. Later she rested her foot on top of mine and brought her head back to me. A good portion of her body was clearly in my seat.

Now if this was a man, I would have felt very uncomfortable. I would never have let it get beyond the initial head on shoulder bit. But men are weird that way, as long as it’s a female it’s okay. But this lady was getting pretty carried away. Maybe if we’d had some kind of communication before hand, it wouldn’t have been so bad. At least I would have felt like I knew her a little. But we hadn’t even made eye-contact for God’s sake. I started to wonder if this was standard practice in Laos. I’d seen some other girls on the bus that I’d wished it was, but I also saw some that I was glad it was not.

Then she managed to move her leg so it was underneath my hand. Now my hand is resting on her leg, and her head is on my shoulder, more like my chest.

“All right lady, if you want to cuddle, c’mon, make the move, let’s cuddle!”

Of course I didn’t say that, but she wouldn’t have understood me anyhow. This was becoming a very surreal experience. Is this really happening?

So now I kept wondering what was going to happen when the bus stopped. Would there be any acknowledgement of what was going on? Is she some kind of nutcase who was going to complain that I was groping her? Finally I got my answer. Halfway through the trip we made a pit stop at another large bus station. She got off the bus with everyone else, but I remained on the bus. I used the buses toilet, and I had brought enough food with me, so I did not need to get off the bus. Plus I would have felt weird standing out there with her.

She came back on the bus with something she purchased from the stand, and put it in the compartment above us. Then she got back into her seat, got under her blanket, and adjusted the air device above. Then finally, she communicated with me. Without spoken language, she acknowledged that she had been using me as a bed and pillow, becasue it’s cold on the bus. Then she tried to speak something to me, but it was in Lao, and obviously I didn’t understand, and she did not understand English. When the bus continued into the night, and the lights went out, so did I continue to allow her my warmth.

Every once in a while she would make one of those, “I’m tired” sounds, which was kind of cute. But then she would also say things out of nowhere that I couldn’t understand, or at least they were monosyllabic sounds of some sort that she made in her sleep. Also the toilet was in the back of the bus, and once when someone made noise opening the door, she yelled at him, which was very creepy.

Suddenly, I started to feel very uncomfortable about the whole situation. Both because the weird sounds were freaking me out, and also the surrealness of it all was very weird. So now I tried to stay as far away as I could. But she continued to use my heat.

Finally, when we got near our destination, still in darkness, the interior bus lights came on in full force, and they put the loud Lao karaoke video on to wake us all up. I didn’t need any waking up since cuddle bunny wouldn’t let me sleep. Shortly after, she said something to the attendent. I think it was about her getting off the bus somewhere before the actual last stop. Then she grabbed her things and moved up to the front seat of the bus, which was vacated by someone who’d gotten off prior. When she left I don’t think she even gave me a smile or a nod or anything. But I can say that I think this was probably the weirdest experience I’ve had on this trip. So surreal.

When I got off the bus in Pakse, I shared a tuk tuk for 5000 kip with the Aussie girls from the other back seats of the bus. We went to where all the guesthouses were. Every guesthouse in Pakse, it seemed, was full. Then I found the girls sitting at an outdoor restaurant (They’re all outdoors in SEA) having breakfast. I asked them if they had any luck finding a place. They hadn’t either. After the first place they looked was full, they wasted no time and purchased a ticket to for a minibus to Si Phan Don (4000 Islands).

All the guesthouses and hotels in Pakse were full because of an event involving the temple there. The locals got all the rooms. So I went to get a ticket on the minibus to 4000 Islands as well, but the guy said the bus was full. Great! Now I’m stuck here with no place to stay. After sitting and wondering what I was going to do, the guy came to me and said that there was still a place on the minibus leaving at 8:30am afterall. So I took it. Si Phan Don is in the very deep south of Laos. If you look on the map I linked earlier in the post you will see it as Don Khong, Don Khon, and Don Dhet, 3 of the bigger islands. That’s where I was headed next anyway . . .

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 8:30 am and is filed under Laos, Thailand, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.