After all the excitement of Songkran I for one was quite happy to get away for a little bit of rest and relaxation. But this didn’t happen straight away. Thai New Year is usually celebrated from the 12th-15th in Chiang Mai, but other parts of the country (and apparently the continent) celebrate at slightly different times.
I was okay from the hotel, as I was in a rather plush Minibus, right up to crossing over the border and getting into Laos…and then I was besieged by bucket upon bucket of lovely Mekong water. Oh Joy! I was herded onto a tuk-tuk and then driven the 2km to the bus station. All fine and dandy apart from the fact that the back of the tuk-tuk has no sides! Everyone in the tuk-tuk was soaked and about to get on a bus for 12 more hours. Oh dear!
When I got to the bus station I discovered that what I had thought was a sleeper bus was in fact not. It was a bus that had sort-of-reclining-seats…and of course mine didn’t work, so I spent most of the night in and out of sleep, in pain at having to be scrunched upright for such a long time. To make this saga even worse, the roads between Chiang Khong and Luang Prabang are really (and I do mean really) bumpy…it was as if I was on a huge big bucking bronco.
So overall not the best 21 hours spent in a bus ever, but i’m here and Laos looks lovely so far 🙂
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