The Driver on the Bus Goes "Beep, beep, beep"

  Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
April 05, 2009

Well, I was a bit disappointed with breakfast this morning. My mixed fruit pancake did not live up to my expectations. I also requested honey instead of condensed milk, but they refused to bring it to me. So, the pancakes were a bit dry and bland. Bill ordered scrambled eggs and was given a very small portion. It is supposed to come with toast or baguette, but they never brought out either. Also, Bill had to add sugar to his tea with his hands; I requested a spoon twice, but we were never given one.

Our tuk tuk driver has been waiting since before 7:30. I don't think the hotel staff explained very well to him our needs. We don't need a driver until 8:15. I wonder how long he has been here... When we head out he goes to the bus station, but we need to go to the travel agency that booked the tickets, so we had to redirect him. The bus station we need to be at is further out of town. Again, the staff did not clearly explain to him. Good thing Bill knew to go to the agency or we would have missed the bus and had to stay another day.

I now know that Laos people understand English even less than we had realized. If they do not understand, they do not appear puzzled or shake their heads, they simply walk away... That is going to be an issue...

At the travel agency Anna is there to join us on the bus ride to Luang Prabang. Another guy, Albert is taking the bus with us too. We hopped into another tuk tuk and headed to the bus station. We arrived at the station before 9 am and will depart at 9:30. We wandered around the market there and I used the toilets for 1,000 kip. We were able to buy a spicy sticky bun for 2,000 kip ($.32) before we left. We had food delivered to the window of our bus!

We left fairly promptly on an older bus - surprise, surprise. Our seat numbers were 7 & 8, but someone was already there. Bill found 2 near the back of the bus instead. It looked like the bus had a/c, but it was never turned on. The bus door and all the windows were open, so it was quite comfortable when the bus was moving. We even had a vented roof. The seats were fairly comfortable, a bit more leg room would have been nice, but we survived.

The road was smooth for the first hour and then became really bumpy (I popped some gravol). For the next 6 hours we averaged 34 kms/hour. The roads were in very bad shape and it was very hilly and winding. That is why it is going to take us 8 or 9 hours to travel the 301 kms from Luang Namtha to Luang Prabang.

We had 2 roadside stops (had to find cover in the bushes if you had to relieve yourself), at one they only sold watermelon and cucumbers, the other had nothing expect paths in the bushes off the road. One break was for lunch at a bus stop. Bill had chicken fried rice (very little chicken) and I had fried noodles with Chinese cabbage, carrots, eggs and chicken. I had an iced tea and Bill had 2 Cokes for 36,000 kip (less than $6) and an extra 1,000 kip (I think it is rude to charge for the toilet when they do not provide toilet paper, soap or any place to wash your hands, but what can you do?).

During the trip I slept a bit and finished "Marrying Buddha". Bill read some Winston Churchill and the Lonely Planet. Most of the time we looked out the window. The landscape is very green and hilly. There are many small villages of a dozen homes or less along the roadside.

We arrived in Luang Prabang at 7 pm and were swarmed by the tuk tuk racketeers. One group agreed on a price of 10,000 kip/person ($1.60), so that is the price that we all have to pay. They crammed 16 of us into 2 tuk tuks (this time is like a motorcycle with a covered truck bed with seats). Our tuk tuk was not able to go very fast with the 8 of us and all of our luggage. We were all dropped at the night market and left to find our own way to the hotel. Of course there are other tuk tuks to take us, but we were able to walk through the crowded handicraft market to our Guest House.

Our Guest House seems very nice and the room is very spacious. We have a real toilet that has cleaner in it (WOW) and a shower that has a door instead of a moldy curtain. We also have several English channels on TV too. High living!

We walked to Tum Tum Cheng Restaurant and Cooking School. We wanted to try the food before we signed up for a class. The course is 270,000 ($43) for a 1/2 day course. You learn how to make 2 to 6 dishes and there was an extra ($8) for a cookbook and no video is allowed. Sounds like a lot of rules and pretty expensive to me...

I had the spicy beef sala for dinner. It was not very spicy, was mostly ground beef and had lots of mint in it. Not quite what I was expecting, but was OK. Bill really enjoyed his lemon grass chicken, but did not eat the eggplant. He did enjoy a "real" glass of white wine with dinner. I had soda water that they had added too much lime too... My luck with restaurants has turned lately! (270,000 kip $44 - I think we can have a better meal for less here)

By the time we were done our meal, I had decided that I was not going to take a cooking lesson here. I would prefer to learn more authentic Laos cooking...

On the way back to our Guest House we picked up 6 large bottles of water for less than $2 and had some crepes from a street vendor for less than $3. I had peanut butter with bananas, mangos and apples. Bill had his with strawberry iced cream - Very good!

We watched a really bad movie with Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate before we went to sleep. I am not sure what compelled them to be in that movie... It was REALLY bad.