Random bloggyness from our travels

So we were in Luang Prabang wondering how the hell we were going to get to Vientiane (we being myself and the missus) when Jo (the nutter we were travelling with (sorry Jo but you know its true)) suggests we go out to the plain of jars. Now I’m all for looking at a very large field (and for very large field think plain in the American mid west sense) covered in what look to be funeral urns but as its covered in unexploded bombs dropped by the American Military during the Vietnam (or if your Vietnamese read American) war I thought that maybe we should give it a miss.

So with the thought of not getting blown up fresh in our heads we trekked over to the local bus depot and boarded a very crowded tourist bus filled with other western style travellers (and no they weren’t all wearing leather chaps and ten gallon hats) bound for the lovely city of Vientiane. Now as there is no rail system to speak of in Laos and the drive south would take 7hrs (ish) we got comfy and all plugged our iPods in. The thing that never occurred to us was that we (and by we I mean the big gang of naïve western travellers) with our electronic devices and fancy looking clothes and backpacks would appear to be affluent by Laotian standards to the locals living in the hills between Luang and Vientiane and therefore a possible target for nefarious activities of one sort or another.

As the engine fired up and the dust blew out of the antiquated aircon a bunch of locals piled on board with a number of cardboard boxes wrapped in sellotape and plonked themselves down in the aisle. There were no seats left, us westerners had paid our greatly inflated fee (that seemed pretty cheap to us but probably outrageous to anyone native).

So off we trundled and my anxiety rose. Here was a lovely juicy target to any hill bandits that may decide to take advantage of it - a bus filled with tourists with money that were probably untraceable - no itinaries to speak of. The scenery passed by and civilisation slowly disappeared, as did tarmac and before we knew it we were on dust roads through mountainous jungle. It was then that I noticed the below:

Hmmm now I’m seeing bandits and kidnappers in the trees, revolutionaries hiding in the bushes, cows disguised as bombs, the whole nine yards. My paranoia has kicked big time. Here we were in the middle of nowhere trusting our safety to a bunch of local hicks with guns, no police patrols or mobile phone signals, satellite surveillance or heavily armed gunships protecting my god given right freedom, consumerism and military supremacy.

But wait, whats this. After 6.5 hrs and significantly shredded nerves the bus stops. A man gets on and starts to remove the aforementioned cardboard boxes into a small pickup, the gun and locals disappear and we continue on our way to the bus station in the capital where we are cheerfully sent on our way with a smile from our happy bus driver.

The morale of the story. I am not the centre of the world, everything does not revolve around me and that people of the world have their own problems.