Vieng Xai - Getting there and away

The downside of travelling by public bus with somebody who's driven them for a living is that blissful ignorance of the transport's condition is no longer an option.

To Andy's credit, he did his best to describe the situation positively - after giving the Coaster in which we were to spend the next 7 hours the once-over, he reported with a smile 'you'll be glad to hear the front left hand side tyre is new'.

Unruffled, I chose to concentrate on my bag of pineapple. The keen interest Andy took in the spare cable purchased by the driver 20 minutes into our trip also barely managed to catch my attention.

His next comment, however caught it fair and square. 'I could list 15 things about this bus that should put it off the road'.

Thankfully he didn't. Only noted that if he were the driver he would prefer the breaks to be working properly. Nice - our route to Sam Neua was to scale what turned out to be the steepest mountain ranges in Laos.

So as we chugged along, past mountain-sides that dropped away at every turn, greeting each child or buffalo with three pumps of the brakes and a honk of the (barely audible) horn, I decided to do as the locals do.

I found comfort in my half-size seat, enjoyed the way the Lao-style pop-chant CD synchronised with the splutter of the engine and the occasional clunk of the suspension, and prayed to Buddha to deliver us safely ...

Sadly, this was not our bus.

Even the comfortable seat and melodic tunes didn't keep my mind off the situation for long, and I decided to write about it. Thankfully, our prayers were answered, and we arrived without incident in Sam Neua that night. Sam Neua is near Vieng Xai, the old capital of Laos, and the site of a truly inspiring David and Goliath story - which we'll write about in detail. We were truly blown out.

However, having got there, we needed to get back again. The trip back topped all SE Asia bus riding experiences, and I'd prefer to keep it brief. The best seats we could manage were bags of rice in the isle. Backwards. I shared mine with three other people.

Some way along, high up in the mountains, the bus took a slide and ended up on a precarious angle hard up against an embankment. I have to say, this is where I almost abandoned the mission, and it took quite a bit of coaxing for me to file back onto the bus with the other 60 people (the driver's approach was to assure me 'no more accident, miss!') The trip was scheduled to be 18 hours long.

I'm not even going to mention the music, or say too much about the elderly lady who had a tactile fascination for my jewellery, and couldn't keep herself from pawing Andy's furry forearm (from very close range).

Thankfully we were delivered. On our dinner brake (I had no stomach for another bowl of noodle soup or plate of pickled eggs) Andy wandered off with my torch to 'look at the trucks'. He and a couple of Vietnamese truckies must have identified each other as brothers of the wheel (heh), because they very quickly invited us for a ride.

Soon we had left the rest of the sorry bus riders and were stretched out, banging along the Hanoi - Phonsovahn freight route high in a cab in a convey of truckies.

It has to be said that on more than one occasion, I have longed for our own transport, and wished that one of us was driving! :)