Shallow Trenches

If you don’t know much about Laos, fear not: you’re probably in good company.

Before we begin today’s brief geography lesson about one of Asia’s more obscure countries, a word on the country name. Laos is pronounced as one syllable, not two, with a diphthong resembling the pained expression ‘ow’. Enunciation of the ‘s’ is optional, as it is silent both in Lao (the official language of Laos) and French (the language of their former colonizers).

Laos is a land-locked (or, in the positive parlance of politicians, land-linked) country bounded by Thailand to the west, China to the north, Vietnam to the east, and Cambodia to the south. Like Vietnam, it has been a one-party communist state since the end of the “American War” in 1975. Also like Vietnam, the Communist Party of Laos has opened up considerably through a series of market-oriented reforms in recent years.

Per capita, Laos is the world’s most heavily bombed nation. As part of their efforts to disrupt the flow of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the United States dropped more than two million tonnes of ammunition on Laos during their escapades in the region. Unexploded ordinance – bombs that didn’t go off upon impact and remain volatile – poses a major danger to the country’s six million inhabitants.

None of that background information, however, is immediately relevant to the long bus ride between the current capital, Vientiane, and the ancient seat of the monarchy, Luang Prabang. I just threw it in for free.

Crossing the mountain range that separates the two cities, the bus ride from Vientiane to Luang Prabang is at once spectacular and nauseating.

If you buy your tickets too late, as we did, you’ll end up seated at the back of the bus, unable to see the mist-covered mountains as the tail of the bus wags in exaggerated arcs around vicious curves. If you happen to be on the KING OF BUS, you will also discover that the bolts securing the rearmost seats to their frames are missing, and that reclining causes the cushion beneath you to slide forward and fall to the floor.

For ten long, headaching hours, I was unable to sleep, unable to enjoy the scenery streaking past, and unable to converse with civility, thanks to the nausea.

The most enjoyable moments of the journey occurred when the bus driver pulled to the side of the road to relieve himself, allowing passengers to briefly enjoy a view of what, at that precise moment, might well have been the world’s most beautiful mass urinal.

Those of us with antsy shutter fingers snapped off frame after frame, reminding ourselves that digital photography is cheap, and forgetting that our hard drives are already full of pictures we’re too lazy to delete.

We finally arrived in Luang Prabang around dinner time, having lost the best hours of the day to the road, and caught a tuk tuk – a modified pickup truck with benches and a roof serving as a taxi – into town to find a guesthouse.