I’m in Pakse, Laos right now. I got here this morning about 7 after a twelve hour bus ride from Vientiane. I know that what comes next will probably be kind of boring to anyone reading this, but I want to put it down for some future time when I need to remember what could be considered the worst bus ride I’ve had in a long time.

So I booked a ticket two days ago on a sleeper bus to Pakse. I have never been on a true sleeper bus that has beds. I have been on a sleeper bus that had seats that folded almost all the way back, but always up for a new experience I was looking forward to a bed on a bus.

Our transport to the bus station was in the back of a kind of pickup truck with a cover and seats in the back area. It was packed and not very comfortable, but the ride only lasted about thirty minutes. On another post I talked about a Belgium guy that was passed out next to me on my bus ride to Vientiane, and how he was staying at the same hostel as me. It turned out that he was also going on the bus to Pakse. We get to the bus station and everything seems to be going very smoothly, the station wasn’t crowded and I was on the bus in about thirty minutes. That’s when things started to really go bad. It turns out that the bed on the bus is small, about 5 feet long and about 4 feet wide, and…. And this is a big “and,”  two people share the bed. I couldn’t believe it, two strangers sharing a bed that is only 4 feet wide is bad enough, but then you can’t even stretch out your legs. I get to my bed hoping that some small girl would have to share with me, but no, it was the Belgium guy. It seemed so improbable that it would have been him. I guess it’s better to know who you’re going to be sleeping next to.

So here I am at about 8pm squished next to a Belgium guy (David) and I’m dying. There isn’t enough room to move around, my legs are bent and starting to cramp up, and I’m starting to get a little claustrophobic. The road is so bumpy that I’m hitting my head on a bar that goes across the window, most of the time my pillow  dampens the thud my head made, but sometimes when the pillow had shifted, my head hit hard. :)  The whole night I was waking up because either David had strayed over to my side of the bed or by the bang of my head against that damn bar. I did get David back though. A couple of times I woke up to my leg kicking him… well not really kicking, more like falling on him.

I can honestly say that this ‘sleeper bus’ is the worst conceived idea I’ve ever experienced. I know in time I’ll be laughing about it, in fact this morning I was hanging out with David (we’re staying at the same hotel here in Pakse) and his friend Jose and Sophie, and we were laughing about the experience. What makes it even funnier is that passengers pay more for the bus.

Pakse is a small town and I almost instantly got a good vibe from it. It feels more like a real village in Laos. I mean there are tourists all over but it still feels much more real than many of the other places that I’ve gone recently.

I didn’t do much today and only managed to walk around for about thirty minutes (other than the morning walk from the bus to the hotel). I walked down to the river and took a few photos. Tomorrow though I’ll get better ones of the city and area around the city center.