Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Red eyes & brown pants

Savvanakhet, Laos
I had another red-eye start today and have sped down to Savvanakhet, sort of half way down the taily bit of Laos. Decided to get a wriggle on as time seems to be ebbing away a little.

To say the bus journey here was terrifying would be like saying there were a few teething problems with the new Wembley Stadium. My Laos bowels almost returned and my old friend Strangely Brown almost reappeared on the seat next to me. The road (or surface of the moon with patches of tarmac) was awash with confused, dim and rather reckless water buffalo, cattle and goats. However, the bus driver was seemingly more confused dim and definitely reckless. He seemed to think that heavy handed use of the horn was a safer tactic than more light footed & judicious use of the accelerator pedal. At one point he had to swerve to avoid a calf that had got confused by his honking horn, or just had balls the size of water melons and was playing chicken, and the bus was almost tipped onto two wheels. Now wait a minute pal, choosing to drive at breakneck speed on livestock littered 'highways' isn't clever, but if you do, then DO NOT kill me trying to swerve out of the way of a beastie. Just hit the frikking thing and live with the consequences of your own stupidity! Better still slow down, and do everyone a favour. Maybe he lived in Savvanakhet and had just been told that his house was on fire. Maybe he was just a stupid nutter with a death wish!

No pics from me (trouble with the computer) but here's a pic of what could have ended up sitting in seat 13B of the bus:


Oh, and I know my viewing public that return loyally day on day for morsels of wordy nourishment and visual titillation are desperate to know this...I think I've got to the bottom of the rice issue previously mentioned. I shan't go into it here for fear of looking like a complete rice geek, but suffice to say I envisage nights of uninterrupted sleep and perhaps gaining some colour in my hair that has gone grey with worrying about the conundrum. If you really want to know, TAG me you saddo!

[By the way, managed to add a title at LAST! Away the puns!]

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