“We live in a wonderful
world that is full of beauty,
charm and adventure.
There is no end to the
adventures we can have if
only we seek them with
our eyes open.”
– Jawaharial Nehru
The reason we all ended up together in the first place was that we had all booked the same trip to Laos. Since money can get you just about everything here, it is most common to do the major border crossings is organized tours. This particular one started of in a minibus to the border, then one night stay in a hotel then crossing over the next day. Then the highlight og the trip: slowboat to Luang Prabang.
After dinner the first night, we hit town, searching for a pool-bar. We ended up finding a snooker table and spent the rest of the night doing some major bonding and even more beer drinking.
The morning after meant border-crossing! And most important, the amazing boat trip we had ahead of us! Everything seemed to be pointing our way, and we were all ready for a relaxing day, just palaying cards and watching at the nature along the way. Sounds wonderful. but little did we know
First of all we needed visas to come further in the country
Just after this, things began to happen. Our guide, who was supposed to take us to the boat, brought us to his office instead, and soon after this, he had somehow managed to convince us the showboat was a bad, bad idea. Apparently, the previous week one of the slow boats had taken a day longer than it was supposed to, and he felt that we had the right to know this before we went on.
This story was quickly followed by other horrific scenarios, ending up in the presentation of the wonderful and amazing VIP Bus! At the time, the pictures seemt very tempting compared to the stories, and with the promise of comfy seats and air-condition it honestly seemed like the best choice. Also, it would only take 9 hours and that meant we would reach Luang Prabang the same night. Stupid as we were, we all (10 people) said yes and paid 300bath extra for the bus.
Jusrt after this, our guide disappeared and a couple of tuktuks picked us up. We drove for 20 minutes before they stopped and, without a word, threw us into an old, smelly local bus. We kept asking for our "VIP bus", but all of a sudden noone knew a word of english. Funny how that always happens when something is wrong! In the end, we had no other choice to get on it. The boat we were originally gonna take had departed, and noone wanted to wait another day. We decided to make the best of it. 9 hours on a bus is not the end of the world…! (...Or is it?)
Just after one hour the bus broke down. The first time...
Luckily Ranveig was as helpful as always.
Long story short. Disaster! 16 hours after departure, on the worst roads ever, with 2 stops to fix the engine, one (very unnecessary) stop to change the tires, and on top of this no sleep whatsoever, we finally reached our destination! 7hours after scedual. No need to say we were lucky to find a place 3.30am.
The next morning we had to celebrate our arrival with some western food and with som local beer.
AND - new city means new temples!
After once again spending to much money at the marked, we met a group of locals sitting in the streets, and ended up spending the night with them. At first, we joined them at the sidewalk throwing back a couple of beers and listening to their proud performance of some english classics. Then we got invited to join them at a local bar. That sounded fun of course, so we stacked up, 3 on each scooter, and went for it!
Team Slowbus had a lot of fun in Luang Prabang, its just to much to put into words, so here is a taste of the crazyness:
After a couple of days we booked a new bus trip, this time to see the plain of jars. This was a bus trip on 7 hours each way. You would probably think we were sick of buses after our last experience, and YES you were right. At least this time we decided to put money into a minibus, so it wasn't to bad! On the way to Phonsavan , we stopped at a very fascinating village. It was filled with kids, but not a single adult in sight. The older ones was protecting the babies, and they were all sneaking after us as we walked in-between their houses.
We arrived in the evening, and were gonna spend the night there before we were going to see the fabulous Plain Of Jars…
..And that was it.
Well, believe it or not, it was actually fascinating, these jars have a interesting and unknown history. But, was it wort 14 hours on a bus? Who are we to decide!
On the way back Ranveig managed to almost forget our beloved travel trofe! What a disaster that would have been.
Erik saves the day!
Thank you!!
Believe it or not, another bus story.This time we booked a new minibus, heading for Vang Vieng, the city of "tubing".. For the second time, something went wrong.. A minibus picked us up, but stopped at a station nearby.. For some reason the driver couldn't drive us further. We never got a real explanation why not, but obviously the hole point was to make us pay more.
Luckily we managed to find a minibus on the station, with a driver who could drive us. For the price we already paid. So back on the road again! Just a little later than planed.
The minibus arrived outside our guesthouse 4 hours later, and we were finally there! We had been talking about the tubing since day one, and we had all heard so much about it. Still we had no idea what to expect. Our host at the guesthouse told us that we needed the hole day for tubing, so it would be no point in starting in the afternoon. No problem for team slowbus! We had a city to explore.
The owner decided to give us whisky.. For free!
2 minutes later, we were in party mood!
Luckily the whiskey didn't ruined us completely before the big day. Tubing here we come!
We will ever forget the feeling that grew as we walked towards the first bar. The last of all our worries were washed away as the intense music became closer!
Its on baby! (This is the part mom and dad should skip). This day was all about having fun, tubing and drinking! And maybe some of us drank to much. Who knows, can you remember? This is what we know, Team Slowbus made it happened, we couldn't have had more fun. And people followed our footsteps!
As we drifted down in the river, the bars threw ropes out to catch us. Just indescribable! Somethimes it was hard to get all of us up considering we were always 8 people or more, and we all wanted to go to the same place. Somehow we always managed.
After hours and hours of this madness, we got picked up by some kids as we floated down the river. Clearly we were far past the stopping pont, but everyone was to drink to notes
If you go to Laos, don't miss the tubing! But remember, be smart. Its no point doing it more than once! Even though it is more fun than you could ever imagine, free shots, loud music and people just having a good time, we believe you can never top the first round. Sure, it would be more than fun to do it again! But come on, its more to life, right? (Just trying to convince ourself we made the right decision by skipping it the second day. destroyed..)
Thanks for a good run Team Slowbus, miss you guys already!
Photos of the day:
Awesomeness!
Ranveig&Lina
