Chaing Mai Bound...

Five hours later bus ride 1 done. We were in Vietiane,, and has all of 20 seconds of mass chaos to grab all four of our bags and blinding run onto a bus where locals were yelling at us “get on, get on, get on”…we got on for fear of our lives and were hoping this was even the right bus. This bus took us to a random corner in the city..we had to get our bags and pack 20 people and our luggage onto an oversized tukt tuk, that comfortably seats 8… Carley was the lucky one and got to sit shot gun, while Birmy was stuck holding onto his bags with one arm, the other arm was holding onto the monkey bar up to to make sure he would stay in the moving truck, while his right foot was used to cover his computer from the pouring rain. The tuk-tuk took us to the border, and we now had to walk through “customs” to get into Thailand. We made it through boarder control, luckily because Birmy’s Lao visa was never legitimately stamped thanks to customs in Pakse, Lao. We then boarded our next bus, a double decker monster truck bus that was probably recycled from Real World/ Road Rules bus tour. This bus drove an hour into the middle of the nowhere, then dropped all 6 of us on the side of the road to get a bowl of rice from a random restaurant with a swimming pool…at dark. After two spoon fulls, we got onto our “mini-van”, and all 8 of us embarked on a adventure that is never to be forgotten. Our driver didn’t speak a word of English, and the only reason he is not in NASCAR, was because he had too many speeding violations going into the pit stop. Welp, we had 11 hours with this guy…and just writing about it makes us both want to cry. The only positive side of this was that the 11 hour ride, was soon to be cut into 8. Our tin freezer box that was cruising at an average of 140 km/hr, 120 into steep banked curbs, where it said to go 30, with a temperature that is only achieved in the North Pole. Since no one could fall asleep- 1, because we were frozen, and 2-because we were afraid for our lives; a passenger kindly asked if the driver could turn down the AC, so that hypothermia would not set in. Apparently in Thai this is translated into “go F*@$ yourself”, because the driver started screaming, pulled up the driver/passenger barrier, and sped up into our next 90 degree turn going 160(no exaggeration). The friendly then screamed “I ASKED YOU TO TURN DOWN THE HEAT, JESUS CHRIST!!!! YOU’RE DRIVING LIKE A F*$@ING LUNATIC, I WILL CALL THE POLICE, SLOW DOWN, WE DON’T WANT TO DIE, BULLOCKS, BULLOCKS!!!!!!!” At this point it ws pitch black, at 11 PM, driving through steep mountains with pouring rain. If it wasn’t a question of if we were going to live, we sure weren’t now…and we sure couldn’t do much about it..instead we just had to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Hours later, we made thankfully made it to the Royal Guesthouse, and literally thanked God for keeping us in one piece.