Buses and Boats

One of the pleasures about travelling with a child is the joy Z takes in the various vehicles involved.

We are fresh off a Lao-style tuk-tuk (with two rows of seats facing each other in the back, though still powered, in the traditional tuk-tuk vein, by a 90cc scooter), at Savannakhet’s bus station. He has been putting his new motorbike helmet to great use by surfing off the tailgate.

Then it emerges that we will need to get the bus.

“Well, if there are no sawngthaews that go that distance, why can’t we get a tourist bus?” he says. “I’ve told you before that local bus is my least favourite method of transport.”

Sawngthaews are, basically, pickups, with two (sometimes even three) rows of seats in the back. While heavily laden, they provide guaranteed fresh air, plus one can also ride the footplate at the rear. Z had been looking forward to five hours on the back of one rather more than I had.

“No,” I say. “I’m sorry there’s no sawngthaews going that distance, but a tourist bus will cost us $25 and this one is $3.50. Plus I think there’s only one tourist bus a day, if that.”

We settle in, our separate seats reflecting a certain froideur on both sides.

There is a crash, as he hurls his new motorbike helmet to the floor.

“Oh dear. What’s the matter?” I ask.

“There’s no point me even having this motorbike helmet now if I can’t ride on the back of a sawngthaew. And you never listen to a word I say.”

I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” I say. “But it’s bus or nothing, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“Well, you won’t say that when I’m feeling nauseous later,” he says.

“Look,” I say. “I don’t really see what your problem is with this bus. It’s just like the one yesterday. It looks a bit manky. The suspension’s probably knackered. But it’s got aircon.”

“This seat hasn’t,” he says. “We could at least sit somewhere where they haven’t ripped the aircon out.”

We relocate. “The thing with local buses,” he continues, “Is that they pack them as full of people as they can.”

He points balefully at the stack of blue plastic stools in the aisle for overflow passengers. “It’s not even going to leave until they’ve filled those up.”

In fact, the bus hits critical mass / profitability / whatever when it is less than half full. Our progress is quite charmingly random. While we brake for no one, bar water buffalo, we make a lengthy stop at the clothes shop, where the conductor says hi to the family and a couple of passengers stock up on fake Premier League shirts, and another at a watermelon stall which sells quite the best watermelons either of us have ever tasted. When the bus brakes, these cascade at cannonball velocity towards the driver’s head, to much hilarity all round.

I endeavour to soothe the bitter pill. “Well, look, we have a choice of how we get to Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands,” I say. “I think by the time we get in it will be too late to get a sawngthaew. But if we spend the night, we could get the boat in the morning.”

He perks up. “What are our options?”

“Well, there’s a bus…” I begin.

“You know that the bus is our absolute last choice,” he says. “What are our other options?”

The powers that be in Laos, as in Cambodia, rely on the dry season to renew their bridges. We bump at an exhilarating pace over the non-bridge alternative, a rutted red dirt road through the riverbed. A chap in his 60s removes his surgical mask to hawk copious quantities of vomit into a little plastic bag.

“Well, there’s a boat,” I say. “It will be eight or ten hours. Or we can always get a sawngthaew.”

“Boat!” he says. “Definitely a boat down the mighty Mekong.”

In Pakse it emerges that said boat, sadly, like many of the great local boat rides in South-East Asia, has been wiped out by the improvements in the road, although recently enough for some people to think it still runs.

Z takes the news, and the 7am start to hike our bags to the ferry landing in time for our nonexistent boat, like a real trooper.

As we wait at Pakse bus station, in a sawngthaew, waiting for it to fill up with betel-chewing old ladies, three babies whose age is definitely counted in weeks, not months, and the whole rich tapestry of colour one gets on one of these things, sir’s concern with overcrowding evanesces.

Once the truck is full, and I do mean full, our journey proceeds merrily, and at pace. Every so often we are assailed with offers of fried young chicken (heavy on the MSG, and quite delicious), skewers of beetles (I am steeling myself to report back), green papaya, sticky rice, skewers of liver and chitterlings, banana-leaf parcels of pork, cold drinks and, randomly, entire bunches of mooli.

By the time we arrive at the mighty Mekong, and our crossing to Don Khong, Z has slept off his early start and is full of beans. He settles on to the ladder leading up to the roof of the sawngthaew, intending to spend the rest of the journey there.

On the ferry — a knackered tug boat pushing an equally elderly platform with a pickup, a lorry, and some odd trailer-type contraption powered by a lawnmower engine, complete with long handles, stuck on a tractor axle — he distinguishes himself by attempting to help the driver wind down the back of the platform and refusing to stop when asked.

“He didn’t tell me why, Mum!” he says.

“Well, of course he didn’t!” I say. “He doesn’t speak English. And, anyway, when the driver of a boat tells you to stop doing something, you stop. You could have had your arm taken off by that cable.”

A statement, as so often in these parts, which is literally, rather than metaphorically, true.

We climb back onto the sawngthaew as it bumps off the ferry and up the dirt road. Four guys jump on the back, make concerned faces and push Z into the inside of the vehicle. He protests. I haul him in, one hand under each of his armpits, as he wriggles, vigorously, for freedom.

“What are you doing?!” I say, beginning to panic slightly, with nothing to hold onto for myself. On the plus side, the sawngthaew is too cramped for one to fall out with any ease.

“I’m trying to get back out there,” he says, his face red with effort. We jolt up the bank.

“Well, you can’t!” I say. “These guys need to sit there. Plus you could fall out.”

“They just want to have all the fun for themselves,” he says, his lip wobbling.

“It’s not that, sweetheart,” I say. “It’s just that they have nowhere to sit. It’s not a fun journey for them like it is for you. They’re just getting the bus and they want to get on.”

Off comes the motorbike helmet. Down come the tears. I assume he is dehydrated and force some water down him. The old lady opposite me stops chewing to mime eating at me, and I realise that he has, indeed, had nothing to eat all morning.

“I hate sawngthaews,” he says. “They’re no fun if you can’t get on the back.”

“But you’re too tired to be safe on the back,” I say. “Look at what happened on the ferry! That wasn’t safe.”

“I’m not tired,” he says. I fumble in my handbag for sustenance and realise I have eaten our emergency rations. It is not a great day for parenting.

Anywise, we are safely here now, on Don Khong, Four Thousand Islands, and he is looking forward to our next sawngthaew.

I have rented a wooden canoe, and we will be exploring some more of the islands, and also a waterfall or two over the next two or three days. We will be taking plenty of emergency rations, in a form other than gorgeous little coconut macaroons.