So the bus was full in fact 8 more people then seats. Those people without numbers got plastic stolls without backs to sit on in the aisles for 12 hours! We vowed to be 1 hour early for all the buses in future.

There were 7 westerns on the bus out of 55 or so and our bags ended up in the belly not on the roof. A friendly loas man who teachs english was in the aisle next to us.

As we exited town we could smell the smoke from the burning of the stubble in the fields. The ride was like being on HW1 from Mill Valley to Muir Woods for 12 hours in the dark. One women shreaked involuntarily as we took a curve to fast. In the headlights we could see houses were now on stilts, there were lots of pool tables and the flourescent lights were very bright in the overhangs of the huts. We stopped at 9pm then again at 10:45pm the mountain air was cool and the overhead bin became full of dried fish bought from the Loas equivalent of a truck stop. The fish had been dried in the sunlight and was being bought for relatives and friends. There was no toliet on the bus hence the stops so the women could go into the darkness and squat good thing we had toliet paper stashed in our bags. A blow up neck pillow would have been the way to go.

At the second stop one women was fixing her make up in the rear view mirror. There were 2 children sitting behind me on their parents laps all night and I didn’t hear a peep from them around the age of 3 and 4. As we careened around corners there were UFO coming out of the overhead shelves – I think dried fish was hitting the plastic stoll dwellers on the head! The bus was meant to be air conditioned but definantely was not. The owner of the bus is making a killing. Both annabelle and I have done so much travelling our feet and hands are swollen.

The truck stops must provide the livliehood for the villagers along the road. The next stop was at 1am for hot noodles. The toliet is a hole in a tiled floor with a hose to wash it away. Annabelle keeps head butting the window when she falls asleep and has  wrapped a tshirt around her head for padding. Very funny.  

At 4:15 in the morning we again stop by the roadside it is very smokey as we are in an area being burnt. At this point the bus is getting warm and there is a smell of bodies but not as bad as one would imagine. There is bottle brush around us and also bannana trees.

The Loa people are very quiet, polite and friendly. The lights in the bus flicker on and off like a night club and we can see wooden fences of branches lashed together with string along the road. We are going slowly and are past by other coaches some of the houses are breeze blocks most are thatched roofs and palm matting. We wind up hill for hours and can see the lights of the trucks we pass down the valley. Our friend in the aisle has turned his plastic stool into a pillow.

 It must be hard to farm up here but the roads are in good condition and the signs are in US and Loas. The road is cut into the side of the moutain with rock face on our side and cliff on the other side of the bus. Their drive on the right here.

Sunrise comes slowly and the light shines through the hazy sky we are now alongside a river in a steep sided valley in the upper reaches of the river. There isn’t room for fields it is very lush and green. There are little cages protecting tree seedlings on the side of the road.

At 6am I see a few kids struggling on their bikes up hill with satchels I assume they are going to school if they are lucky otherwise it is to work.

The houses have staircases on the outside if they are two stories tall. There are big satellite dishes outside some of them and homemade lakes at the edge of the villages.

We arrive 11 hours later in Luang Prabang in the southern bus station on the outside of town in the flat flood plain where the Mekong and another river meet.

10,000k to get into town on the tuk tuk and we find a guest house to stay at for 80,000k with a shared bathroom. Cute little place. We have a shower and start the day!