Much in laos does not make sense to our western minds; above all,fixed prices, shotty construction methods, and overpriced,inefficient transportation.
After the waterfall,we booked a bus for Vang Vieng, a southern granola city. The man quoted us $15 per person. "What?! Ubsurd!" Austin replied, " it is only 200 km (120 miles)! And how on earth is that supposed to take 5 hours on Laos' national highway?!"
Well, the next morning we found out just how great laos' national highway is. We were crammed into a 15 passenger Toyota Siena van (or its imaginable equivalent). We were of the thought that this would be yet another boring bus ride through some lovely verge, but reality, and serious nausea, soon hit!
In short, it was a 5 hour rollercoaster. Our driver, clearly a former formula 1 driver, managed to squeal the tires on every curve, quite the feat considering they were constant. Leftttt squeallll right squealllll left squealllllll. Constant pot holes. Dodging chickens. Passing trucks on blind curves.
We had a brief ten minute reprieve when the driver pulled over to pee. Many of our fellow torturees took this opportunity to puke. But seriously. Steph nearly joined them, surviving the ride solely through her yoga oogi breath, for which Austin loves to tease her about.
The coaster finally came to an end when the driver pulled off the road at a random location and told everyone to get out. No clear town in site. We demanded he take us to where we paid him to take us. With an Asian giggle we have learned to despise, he ran off, leaving his queasy passengers to the wolves, aka tuk tuk drivers.
Thank heavens for our tablet and map- we saw the town was only 1 km away, and, to top it off, the driver had driven though the city to take us to this viper pit of tuk tuk drivers.
Shady business Laos. You couldn't pay me enough to take that bus again.
Score: Laos 1, us 1
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