The Construction of Memories: Flying into Laos

Having just been back from a one week trip from Laos and Vietnam, it feels a tad surreal for most of my trip was spent either on a bus, or a boat getting from one place to the other. Just as well that i will be travelling back to Indonesia in 2 days, i'd rather write and share my experience on this Blog while all is fresh and the memory of it is simply reveling to be released.

Vientiane, Laos

Arriving in Vientien airport at 9 am was a good start. It was early, sun was up, weather not too hot to travel in and we at least had a day to explore the small town. Little did we know (my sister and I) that our travel companions had other plans. The airport was small, employees spoke English, and as you'd find in every other airports; a fair share of taxi-drivers outside that will try and rip you off. For a taxi-ride into town would cost you $ 3 USD per person whereas if you walked further down from the airport and hired a tuk-tuk, they would get you into town for just 2 USD a ride. With a heavier backpack than she can handle, my sister offered to pay for the taxi.

There's a funny story in here as just when we were unloading our bags into the cab, a tall, blonde caucasian guy (accents can be hard to recognise unless it was french..) came up and asked if he could just share the taxi with us. The driver seemed to refuse but the stranger made the internationally understood "money" sign (where the index and thumb finger is rubbing together?) , and so he relents and seats our new travel partner up-front.

The driver didn't speak any English, so all we could do was point and repeat the name of our designated guest-house over and over again, hoping that each time we say it, the pronounciation would be different and he's know which guesthouse it was. Took him 10 minutes to get us there. efficient.

Our travel companion however, jumped down from the cab, said he was getting ciggarettes and dissapeared. Neither my sister, nor I waited to see if he came back to pay the cab-driver. I doubted it. he dashed pretty quickly. Anyway, we met up with the rest of our travel buddies; L, D and Ro. And was clued in on the bus trip to Vang Vien.

J and Ro at Nizam restaurant for Roti's

As the bus ride was scheduled at 10 am, we headed out for some breakfast, which consisted of roti's and thosais for our benefit. Although we've been constantly reminded how time or speed is of no essence here, we waited..and waited for the bus to show up before we boarded on: a mini van (bus broke down somehwere according to our guide..) an hour later than planned. It was roughly a 7 hour ride down every pot-hole imaginable, with me flyng off my seat unto others more than once. Hitting my head on the railing was a repetitive move every few turns.