As Katelin and I pile into the back of a very crowded pick up truck, we can hardly believe that this is our mode of transportation all the way back to the city. We sit on the middle bench of the three wobbling wooden benches and so the journey home is a balancing act, clinging to the makeshift roof with one hand and our backpacks with the other. In this public “bus” the many rules of Lao social etiquette seem to be thrown out the window. We bump along, occasionally ending up in each others laps after a particularly large pothole.
After four solid days of rain (our portion of Vietnam’s typhoon), the road is a mess, sometimes washed out completely. We plow on, weaving our way along the Mekong River (to the right) at the base of jungle covered mountains (to the left). Mercifully, despite the fresh duck’s blood and other strange delicacies I have recently eaten, the combination of medicinal ginger and fresh air keeps my nausea at bay. Sometimes we pass through tiny villages, mere collections of rice paddies and huts, but more often the road dirt road is the only sign that any member of the human race has ever set foot in this place.
The woman sitting across from me is beautiful. Her posture is as elegant as her hair, swept into a sleek spool on top of her head. Her facial features and the weave of her traditional skirt tell me that she is not Lao in the fullest sense of the word, but rather a member of one of Laos’ many ethnic minority groups. A small child sleeps, strapped to her front and another sits beside her. The man next to this tiny girl has a gun strapped to his backpack. No one seems concerned and so, after 20 minutes of “Hotel Rwanda” like scenarios running through my head, I come to accept this as just another reality of life in Laos and I relax. On we fly, red mud splashing up at every dip and turn.
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