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!]
Vientiane, Laos
Things of minor note:
I have really been struggling to read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I've been chewing my way through it for weeks now to about half way but find my mind and eyes wandering every time I attempt to read it. What makes it feel worse is that there's a wee rosette on the front marks it as one of Oprah Winfrey's Book Club choices and I would like to think I have slightly more literary staying power than the average Oprah fan. But no.
So I've pitched it. Not something I like doing or indeed do often. The decision was made after I thought I'd just have a quick 'look' at The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini that Christina had given me in Myanmar, and ended up reading it in a day.
So farewell 100 Years of Solitude. (I was going to title this post '100 Years of Reading in Solitude' by the way for those that need the crap title fix.) [Adendum - coz I can add titles again, I have, so gorge away on the crap 'straps'.]
When I say I pitched it, I swapped it at a book exchange for a book I'm finding equally challenging - The Horses Mouth by Joyce Cary.
Rice - how does it all work?
Being in the engine room of global rice production hasn't passed me by. Apart from eating it pretty much daily, I have been staring out of bus windows at square miles of green shimmering paddy fields. What I don't understand is that you see teams of people planting the stuff in little green shoot form. Where do those little green shoots grow? And why can't they just be left where they are growing rather than transplanted? Perhaps I should look on Wikipedia or ask someone. In fact just have had a look on Wikipedia and it doesn't seem to explain the transplanting element. Answers on a postcard (or Tag me).
Jeepers, this is exciting stuff, huh?
In the words of Columbo: Oh, just one last thing:
Saw this interesting collection of what I thought were Beerlao bottles, but on closer inspection...no: sulphuric acid of cause. They look worryingly similar to Beerlao bottles. I wonder if Beerlao and sulphuric acid are produced in the same factory? I can envisage classic Laurel & Hardy style mix up with 'hilarious consequences'.
