Don't even think about seatbelts.

View of Laos from bus

Let me tell you a little story that happened to us recently. It’s about our bus ride from China to Laos. We were so eager to get to Laos that we should have figured that it wouldn’t be easy…not in the least.

Before he knew about the bugs

The bus ride was scheduled to be about 25 hours. We knew this would be epic, but it was taking us directly to the town we wanted to be in, so we went for it. The bus was a sleeper bus, which essentially is just a bunch of bunk beds crowded together in place of seats. We bought tickets for a lower bunk and were really excited for this ride…different, fun, an experience, right? Indeed it was. As we were waiting for the bus to leave, Ross spotted a bug run across one of the bars. Thinking nothing of it, we just kept on talking. However, when another ran by and went towards the mattress, we looked at each other with dread. Ross lifted up the mattress we were to be sleeping on and found way, way too many cockroach looking bugs. As soon as he shed light on them, they fled.

Now, I think this is the point at which some of our “freak out” sensories just closed their eyes. We knew we had to take this bus, we were desperate to get to Laos. Ross did further investigation and found that the bugs were plentiful on the lower bunks…as in dozens upon dozens of them. However, the upper bunks contained no bugs. So, we switched to the upper bunks.

Now this was only the beginning…by far. And because this is a mildly long story and I don’t actually want to recall it anymore because it was that bad, I’m going to skim through sections.

Next, the upper bunks were positioned directly beneath the speakers which to our luck were blasting (truly) poppy Chinese music. Not even poppy. Sentimental songs by a male singer who changed 4 notes in each song and made an album. One cd…the whole trip. I'm still annoyed by it. We inserted our ear plugs and attempted a night sleep, which didn’t really happen.

After learning of bugs and listening to sentimental music all day...you can see the speaker above

The following day consisted of numerous stops being made within minutes of each other, the same cd, pay to pee bathrooms, a dead dog and then we had to enter Laos. When we walked up to “immigration,” we began to laugh. One window for dozens of people entering the country and their form of a line? Push your way to the front. Who cares if there’s an elderly woman who has been waiting longest, shove your way to the front. Better yet, throw your passport at the guy stamping it and instead of him yelling at you and telling you to get to the back…he ACCEPTS it!!!

So, Ross has made it to the front when we discover there’s a separate line to get upon entry visas. So we fill those out and pay our dues. He gets to the front again and the man at the window hands him another set of forms to fill out. Okay, loosing my cool a bit, but we’re okay…no big deal. Third time to the window, the bus driver comes up to us and motions that we need to pay some unknown reason of a fee to enter the country. This is when I start to break down. And this is when the best part of the story happens…

Ross looks at me as my eyes are filling up with tears and says, “Give me your passport Dev, I’m going into football mode.” Absolute music to my ears. Ross has never said that before and has since said that "football mode is the last option and times must have been getting desperate." Gosh I love him. So, we give $2 to enter the country, the bus man throws our passports through the window to the immigration man and he stamps them. Back on the bus and we stop five minutes later.

The rest of the story consists of the same, but you must remember throughout this whole bus ride, we’re more or less on gravel type road. The paved roads seem rougher than the gravel. So we’re bumping up and down the entire way and at some points, have to hold onto something or we will fall into the world of cockroaches. We become motion sick the last leg and constantly felt like we were being smuggled into the country.

But we made it! I sat up and read some signs and realized that we were indeed driving into Luang Prabang. We survived! However, we did get some insight into what sensory overload may do to someone. Blast that horrible sentimental music again and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.