Vientiane or Bust

I took the bus to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Once again, the bus took THE road, which was a two-lane road over the mountains with a curve every 200m. And I use the term “two-lane” very liberally. It was tight enough that most of us would at least slow down if there was a bus coming in the other direction. But these buses were passing one other with cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, and cows coming in the other direction. Oh, and there are no guardrails. (Mom, you would never have survived it.)

Once again, I was able to see some snippets of village life, but was not able to photograph them to share with you, except for this one image when we were stopped. Someone boarding the bus appears to be the most exciting thing that happens in some of these villages and this boarding drew a crowd.

Once we reached Vientiane, I found a sawngthaew to take me into town. (This is basically a very small pick-up truck with a roof over the bed and benches along either side.) But only a minute after leaving the bus station, the sawngthaew ran out of gas. After our driver ran to get some and filled the tank, we needed a push start. So, he flagged down another sawngthaew that then backed up behind us and hit us several times to get us going. It was absolutely hysterical to me, but apparently standard operating procedure here.