My eyes could hardly focus as I stumbled out of the air conditioned van into the quickly warming morning. The last 11 hours had seen me stuffed into a minibus with 8 other people and thrown across almost a thousand kilometers of Thai landscape, driven through the night by a madman. It took a few quick stretches to loosen my stiff muscles and a hard rub of my eyes before I realized where I was. A few steps through a café with a giant open veranda brought me to the railing where I witnessed one of the most glorious scenes of my life. The beauty and weight of it snatched my breath away and left me gasping for air.
…12 hours before at approx. 7pm…
‘Excuse me, I think my minibus was supposed to be here half an hour ago…’ I asked checking the clock on the wall. Noc looked up from her internet surfing, ‘don’t worry, I called and checked and they should be here soon…’ and was once again focused on the screen. I wasn’t worried so much about missing the bus more then I was worried that they would try to charge me again and 1100 baht x 2 was not in my budget, but true to what she said a few minutes later they did pull up. Five minutes later with my pack stuffed in the back I climbed in and I was off for my next destination, Laos.
Why Laos you ask? I never said anything about Laos before so why the heck did I go there? Good question, good question indeed.
In five months of travel rarely has anything gone as planned. Originally I was going to be in Bangkok for about a week while I got my visa for India (to get to Nepal) then head to Cambodia to see Ankor Wat then back to Bangkok heading south to the beaches and eventually Kuala Lumpur where I would catch a flight to Calcutta. Now everything has changed, changed even from when I first set out for Laos.
Things pretty much hinge around the need for a longer visa and a drunk Skype call. You see, in Thailand there are two types of tourist visas, well actually three. The visa on arrival by land which is 14 days, the visa on arrival by air which is 30 days, and the tourist visa you get beforehand which is 60 days. Thanks to my drunk phone call someone was flying out to meet me on the third but my visa was only good until the first, see the problem?
But I still haven’t answered, why Laos? Well, from Chiang Mai I had a couple of choices, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, or Vietnam. Burma for a day didn’t appeal to me, I already had plans to visit Cambodia, and from stories I had heard Vietnam wouldn’t have tripped my trigger. Laos, on the other hand had some interesting prospects and was relatively cheap and easy to get to.
The van was pretty spacious and the air conditioning was in good order, almost too good. The chairs gave us some room and even leaned back a little. It all looked good as I sat down and began to chat with my neighbors but hours later when all of us tried to get to sleep we discovered the true nature of our hell.
The stiff metal frame that was hidden under the thin cushioning which was barely noticeable when sitting up became a spear in your tailbone when you attempted a more sleep friendly posture. Our driver, yet another Indy 500 wannabe, took every corner like he was in a souped up sports car throwing us from one side to another and figured rough roads were a great place to test the minibuses suspension at high speeds. The temperature which had been friendly when we entered jumped to sweat inducing levels when the driver felt the air conditioner was no longer necessary.
Luckily the people around with their conversation made things tolerable, at least for the first couple of hours when we were all conscious.
At last after a second pit stop at a 7-11 in the middle of nowhere I was able to drift off to sleep with my headphones stuffed firmly in my ears to drown out the sounds of the minibuses straining engine and Thai pop music the driver seemed to enjoy. Somehow I managed to find a position comfortable enough to allow me brief interludes of sleep which interrupted the long journey.
My eyes opened, perhaps a bump in the road had awakened me. The drone of some classical 80’s tune hummed softly in my ears. Every muscle in my body ached, especially my neck, which was tilted at some obscene angle braced up against the window with only my sweater for padding. I blinked, once, twice, three times trying to focus my eyes to check the time.
Three-thirty am. I groaned, only 3:30, still hours to go. I blinked again, still in that half awake half asleep daze that you get from being woken up prematurely, and looked out the window.
The countryside flew by as our driver, in true rally racing form, sped over the country roads. What we drove on was no highway. We were fenced in on both sides by low bushes and an occasional tree and you could see for miles into the distance. Although the moon hid behind the clouds nothing was hidden completely by shadow.
Hills, forests, mountains rose and fell in smooth curves, their dark shapes contrasting against each other in gray tones ranging from black to white.
‘Now this is Thailand’ I thought to myself as a grin worked its way through my mask of weariness. The train rides had been interesting but this was another thing entirely, the backside of Thailand as seen from the window of a speeding car in the quietest hours of the morning before sunrise.
My transition back into sleep didn’t even register in my consciousness until the door to the van opened and we were there.
‘There’ being a decent sized café only minutes from the Friendship Bridge crossing from Thailand to Laos. While most of the minibus was being transferred to another, larger bus, three of us were going to be taken to the crossing to fend for ourselves (a much cheaper and quicker way then letting things be handled for you by a tour company I found out later).
I practically fell out of the minibus regaining my footing only at the last second. A few minutes of stretching and rubbing brought reality back into focus. I looked around, my surroundings finally beginning to register.
Two steps, three steps, four, I walked in a daze toward the verandas railing not quite believing what was spread out before me.
My hands gripped the rail as I breathed deeply, taking in the moment with every pore of my body. The mighty Mekong River flowed by with quick yet gentle majesty moving off in a stately manner all the way to the horizon. Its wide body dominated the scene, the Thai shore littered with small fishing boats ready for use. The air was heavy and full of life in the predawn light. Clouds tinted grey hinted at sunrise with soft purple hues outlining them in the cool blue sky. A soft hum of conversation filled in the background as minibus after minibus began to gather at the entrance disgorging groups of groggy passengers.
Here I was, still in Thailand yet in a short time I’d be entering Laos. What the heck was I doing? Where the heck was I going? Why the heck am I doing this?
As I turned around and headed back to the minibus for the short hop to the Friendship Bridge crossing those questions quickly got lost in my head as the adrenaline of a new adventure beginning took hold. Would I really ever be able to answer those questions anyways, even if I had all the information? I don’t think so.
What the hell, I’m going to Laos.
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