A Loas road trip and a new stage in life

Phew! What a road trip!

A few quick decisions were made on Thursday and Friday regarding work in Laos and then a sudden offer or a lift to the main highway on Saturday meant a quick departure home for me. At midday I was lugging trees out of a plantation and by 3pm I was riding shot gun for the 2.5 hour drive to the junction. This is where the road from Lax Sao joins the main highway in Loas which heads to the very bottom of the country.
I got out there and as luck would have it the very first bus along 5 minutes later had the Paxse written on it which was exactly where I wanted to go.
Paxse is about an hours drive from the border with Thailand with the road then going direct to Ubon Ratchatani.
I was told that the bus should arrive in Paxse about 11pm that night but by my calculations I figured about 12 – 1am allowing me a few hours sleep somewhere before the 7.30am bus to Ubon.
The bus was a shocker! No air con, no fans, broken seats, no toilet, no leg room. The only thing that worked was the engine (just) and of course the Karaoke TV and speakers.
I can just imagine these buses returning to the depot after a 24 hour return journey across the country. The driver drops the keys into the office and yells out to the mechanic “Hey Somchai, those seats are still broken, the left wheel has lost 5 wheel nuts and 2nd and 3rd gears are still missing.” The reply is the same as the previous week “yeah will look at that some time.” The next bus driver then walks in and tells Somchai in an urgent quivering voice “The karaoke machine packed it in at 90 mile marker”. Somchai drops his comic book that he was intently studying and jumps to his feet like superman who just picked up a distress signal. “Onto it now” he yells and he races out the door to the bus in distress. A bus without a karaoke machine is not a bus at all now is it!
The bus only made two scheduled stops and two stops on the side of the road for pee breaks in the bushes but we still managed to get in just after 3am! I must admit it actually wasn’t that bad as my window opened so I had a breeze and most of the trip I had a spare seat next to me plus they did turn the karaoke off just before 1am. The best thing was that I had told the driver where I was going to next so he dropped me almost next to the small terminal that handles these direct busses to Ubon and right outside a hotel that thankfully had a security guard who was able to give me a key to a room. It was a dump and the previous visitor had smoked a packet of cigarettes in the room the previous day but it was a bed after all and I managed a two hour sleep.
I arrived with plenty of time for the 7.30 am bus but found out it didn’t leave till 8.30 am. Time for two yummy Laos Mochachinos before a much more comfortable ride to the Chong Mek border crossing. It was a very easy transfer through immigration before re joining the bus for the two hour ride into Ubon to be reunited with my family.
I have been away from them for five out of the last 6 weeks working with the week we had together totally consumed by the funeral of my father in law. This is way too long to be away from them and I hopefully will not have to do this again.
So I was very excited to see them and the look on Ariya and Marisah’s faces were just beautiful to see. They were so happy it was great. Ariya has since checked with me a few times when I have had to pop out for a few minutes that I am coming back and not going away for a long time again so this trip obviously has had an affect on her.
Now the regular reader may be thinking why I met my family in Ubon and did not head straight home to the village. Well things have changed. Life has changed once again and we have now moved to the city of Ubon. Currently we have rented two rooms at Pan House for a month until we find a house to rent.
Why have we moved to Ubon when we have only just finished building our house in the village? It is a long story and one that I look forward to tell once the contract is signed and things are underway! Life has been so busy the last two months but it seems to have stepped up even another gear now but hopefully I will always find a little time to blog about it.