Travel to Live. Live to Travel

7:00AM – Whoohoo! We’re awake, lets buy food for the bus trip and go…!

9:00AM – Yay, the bus is leaving!

9:15AM – Hmm…. looks like we’re picking up people along the way….

10:30AM – Are we out of Savannakhet yet?

11:00AM – WTF they’re loading planks of wood on the roof?

12:00PM – Pitstop for lunch and more passengers… that lady’s selling eggs on a stick. How do you get eggs on a stick with the shell still on them?

12:05PM – Hey that lady’s got chicken butt….or bat butt… hmm, tiny wings…

12:30PM – Bathroom break. In the bushes. Pass.

1:00PM – Please stop loading people on the bus. The aisles are full already.

1:30PM – Oh god, I think that lady is throwing up…

1:35PM – Damnit, they’re passing the bag of vomit up the aisle.

2:00PM – Zzzzzz….

2:30PM – Are we there yet?

2:35PM – Cool, someone’s getting off. Time to stretch!

2:40PM – WTF 5 people are getting on?

3:30PM – Old man is yelling about stuff and everyone’s laughing at him… crazy old dudes.

4:00PM – Whoo hoo, 70km from Vientiene!

5:30PM – 20km from Vientiene? What the….

6:50PM – Thank god we’ve arrived!

Of course, it wouldn’t be another hour until we got to the hotel and finally got to eat dinner (we had passed on the egg-sticks and the bat/chicken sticks so just ate chocolate and baguettes the entire time.) Despite all of this, I still like this country a lot.

You’d think that after hours of being on a bus, crammed to the brim with bags of rice, luggage, and god knows what that I’d be sore and angry, but yet, I think I’m in love.

On the bus to Vietnam, we met three other foreigners and we shared battle scars from our travels in Vietnam. We wearily admitted to each other that we were tired of travel and Vietnam helped that happen. Yet when we pulled into Savannakhet and walked around town, I believe we were all rejuvenated and our mutual love for travel was renewed. Everywhere we went people smiled and waved and said hello (or bonjour or sabaidee). Dinner was delicious and the waitress was far too thankful for her 4000 kip tip (approximately 40 cents). We went home, took cold showers (no hot water), and slept under a fan (no a/c) listening to goats bleating…and it was a great.

Well, we’ve been in Vietnam since the 22nd of October. To be honest, it hasn’t been easy on us. It’s been a mix of reasons, and while I won’t solely blame our troubles on this, the fact we are an interracial couple (with me being Asian) has proven to be difficult here. However, that’s not why we’re leaving… the floods in northern Vietnam (and the promise of more rain) mean that we just don’t have the stamina to deal with wading through knee-deep water.

So, we’re off to Laos now. We will be arriving in Savannakhet in about 10 hours. I’m really excited about Laos because I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, though we might not have internet access for weeks… Off we go!