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Day 11 – 14th December 2007

Whenever I’m exposed to the cold, there is a tendency for me to produce excessive mucus. It’s definitely not because of the flu virus as I had a shot of the vaccine before I left for Laos, but merely a result of a severe cold-unaccustomed boy. Since Northern Laos was mainly cold in the ‘winter’, I can not stop leaving my guesthouse in the mornings without sniffing and having transparent gooish liquid dribbling down my nose – and tissues, which were a little scarce as we were too cheap to buy them (I’d like to emphasise that we’re cheap backpackers :D), were of utmost importance to me, and I eventually resorted to stealing tissues from restaurants and guesthouses (the ones that provide them) wtf.

The morning mist.

Heading from Nong Khiaw to Pak Meng (or Pakmong as it was described on the map).

We bought our tickets for our pickup truck that departs to Pak Meng, and I couldn’t help but feel that there were times when we were shortchanged just because we were ‘foreigners’ (we were charged 20000kip each, when we intuitively guessed that the locals get by at a far cheaper price). It’s natural I suppose, when you have such similar double standards practised officially by reputable institutions in our own country, as well as taxis, what more local transportation in other countries.

When waiting for the pickup truck to arrive, we actually saw a monk.. buying meat from a stall near us wtf. 0_o

We left Nong Khiaw at about 10am and reached Pak Meng at 11am. All the while I was freezing from the morning chill + wind from vehicle acceleration combination, and it was interesting because among the people (a Laotian uncle also attempted to strike a conversation with us in Lao wtf), we also sat with a chicken and birds (caged of course; the birds’ chirps were drowned by the roar of the pickup truck’s boisterous engine), what looked like sugar canes, and sacks and sacks of (probably) rice on the floor, till we were forced to put our legs on said sacks. And we saw a wild boar being forcefully tied to the back of a motorcycle as it brayed loudly and uglily.

We were supposed to wait for a bus from Luang Prabang that would pass by Pak Meng en route to Huay Xai, and said bus was estimated to arrive at 8pm. On arriving Pak Meng, we went on to look for a local (whose name I’ve forgotten) who was supposed to help us and ensure that we’ll get on the bus at the appointed hour – surprisingly it didn’t take us long to find the person (and the restaurant that we’re supposed to wait at, the town wasn’t very big), and we passed a paper to him written completely in Lao script to him from the bus station guy back in Luang Prabang, probably to explain our predicament to him (it could all very well say “Remember to rob these two idiots and murder them before they get on the bus” for all we know).

So we had about 9 hours to kill. In this preposterously excessive amount of time to spare, we could’ve volunteered for local missionaries or teach local kids English or something, but no, we plonked our arses on the restaurant’s chairs and proceeded to sit from 11am to 8pm. -___- It got so boring I even considered at one point to help the auntie without payment who was managing the banana stall wtf.

Doing next to nothing. Like a couple of old men who were whiling away the time till death arrives wtf. It was excruciatingly boring I can assure you, and to aid our time-killing goal, we used our iPods although not too liberally to conserve batteries for more boredom that lied ahead. We also chatted with one another, learned more about the other party, and our topics were wide and far ranging from “When I Was Drunk” to “When I Had An Accident” (Siew had an interesting tale about his puke fest with his friends in Genting wtf).

During these 9 hours, Pak Meng was a slow town going about its daily life. There was a wedding going on nearby (I think), and when we arrived earlier, there were a group of girls (and one or two rare transvestites) trying to sell the same cheap paper-badge thingy that an American who was in the same bus with us yesterday bought. There were kids playing around with dogs, there were a group of locals playing mahjong in a house opposite our restaurant.

And during these 9 hours, there were very few foreigners who stopped by in Pak Meng. I remember only these 3 groups:

1) A group of people who were on a private tour (consisted of mostly Korean aunties and a burly American man), on a toilet break of some sort. The American and their tour guide asked for our nationalities, and told us that they were trying to guess where we were from (ah, I played this little game with Siew very often as well throughout our travels, the verbal “Guess His/Her Nationality Game”). When we told them we were Malaysians, they went “Ahhhhh” and the American said he thought we were Japanese , while the tour guide (who speaks the best English we’ve ever heard a Laotian speak) thought we were Singaporeans. Seriously, no one has ever thought we were from Malaysia before. >_>

2) Three British guys on massive super bikes dropped by for lunch, before zooming off again.

3) A German dude stopped by for bananas, and he was cycling wtf. Apparently he had been cycling from Huay Xai all the way here, and he was heading to Nong Khiaw. He didn’t even plan to stay at any guesthouses, as he was going to camp on the way with.. tents wtf.

Me in Siew’s jacket looking bored at the restaurant. (Siew deleted a few pics of him making a fool of himself. =.=”)

Before we knew it, day peeled itself into night, and I was feeling the chill once more. We weren’t even sure if the bus was actually going to pick us up, and contemplated a few worst case scenario plans which include staying the night at the restaurant-cum-guesthouse we were at.

But the bus did finally arrive with a loud honk, and a couple of Laotians asked if we were the two people who were going to Huay Xai. We boarded the bus (discovered that the 5000kip or so extra that we paid to ‘reserve’ seats were really to naught), sat at the seats at the end of the bus, and braced ourselves for the oncoming onslaught.

The long road from Pak Meng all the way to Huay Xai (Houeisai in the map, they have inconsistent English spellings as they don’t have a proper established romanised standard) – I could imagine if we were to start from Luang Prabang all the way to Huay Xai like some of the bus passengers did, it would have taken like 17 or 18 hours total. wtf.

I could hardly sleep for a multitude of reasons, and among them was the annoying Laotian music that was playing through the speakers of the bus and from someone else’s handphone who thought it prudent that the rest of the passengers listened to what he was listening to. A young Lao guy sat next to me and it appeared that he was practising his English as he tried to talk to me, ranging from the standard textbook “where are you from?” to “what are you studying?” – it was okay the first few minutes but as I was trying to get some sleep, his sometimes incomprehensible English and bugging got on my nerves.

As per all local long distance buses around the mainland of South-East Asia, there was a man who was sleeping on the aisle by lying down. My butt was aching uncomfortably (but none as worse as one of the two 12-hour bus rides I had in Vietnam), the window Siew was sitting next to was broken and ridiculously cellophane-taped together (thus cold wind was continuously blowing in), the natural aroma of smelly feet filled every free and available gaseous molecules in the bus like a poisonous atmosphere, and oh god it was just so so very cold.

I was even more incredulous when I found out that the young Lao who was sitting next to me was sleeping comfortably and was even snoring away wtf. Trying to sleep was a mammoth task when the bus constantly bounced around the rocky roads non-stop and several times did our arses actually lifted itself up into the air.

Very trying indeed, but we’ve gotten so used to killing time (like doing nothing for 9 hours in Pak Meng, the various bus rides we’ve sat through) that I’d like to elevate ourselves to a professional status. So much so that I felt that when I’m back in Malaysia when I have to wait for buses that arrive an hour later or waiting for someone who’s late on his/her appointment, it would be an absolute piece of cake.

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Day 12 – 15th December 2007

The continuation of the midnight horror had me sitting in my seat, hardly moving (except moving my limbs occasionally so it wouldn’t be frozen or blood clot or other medical maladies), and my mind and body could be described in what could be a semi-coma state. I stoned staring outside the window, occasionally glancing up to the explosion of stars as we passed by through unlit roads – and I think I prolly slept for a combined 1 hour at most.

It was a torturous 12 hour journey; I thought that having sat through other two 12-hour bus rides in Vietnam would get me accustomed to it, but I was sorely mistaken. It was as if the bus was passing by a tundra, and I had thought that the bus would be properly sealed and all warmth (and smelly fishy feet smell) would be duly contained within. But the bus constantly opened its doors to let off locals at various places, the window Siew was sitting next to had frigid wind blowing in – so it was quite literally living in an icy hell.

The bus stopped by twice to have its tires replaced, which was good in a way because I don’t plan on dying in a local bus in the middle of nowhere anytime soon.

When we eventually neared Huay Xai (which was when the sun was rising and you could see the villagers huddling over bunches of fires as even they felt the cold as well), and the view was pleasantly beautiful with all the clouds and mists surveying through the mountains.

At one point, the road was inclining at an extreme 30-40 degrees, and you could hear the bus struggling to climb up at a snail’s pace.

We finally reached Huay Xai at about 9am at its bus terminal. We hitched a tuk-tuk for USD$1 per person (too lazy to bargain when we had just got off from freezing hell) with 3 other Japanese (1 couple, and an old Japanese man probably in his 60s wtf who was quite friendly and had reasonably good English) to the jetty-cum-immigration, got our passports stamped simply (we were charged 5000kip as it was a Saturday, and supposedly, it was what they called an overtime fee as they had to work on a Saturday) – they didn’t even scan nor check our bags or anything, we could’ve smuggled stuffs over to Thailand.

That’s Thailand at the other side of the Mekong River.

We sat a motor-powered boat to cross the Mekong in 2 quick minutes (paid about 8000kip, couldn’t quite remember) and with our total combined of over 20 kilogrammes worth of backpacks (including the 2 bottles of Beerlao that I was lugging around for my friends), without looking back at Laos, our feet stepped onto Thailand – our next leg of adventure that followed.