All Text Copyright © 1975, 1996-2010, Randy R. Johnson, all rights reserved
Beautiful and desolate, breath-taking and dangerous, the road to Luang Prabang is one of the most enthralling overland journeys in Asia. Yes, there are other roads with settings as magnificent, that are longer and perhaps as exciting. But the road to Luang Prabang is an immersion into the moods of Laos, a migration through life with its startlingly open people. It is an experience in timelessness.
National Route 15 rambles north from Vientiane, through lush valleys of rice padis and up into the highlands beside the Plain of Jars before dropping into the quiet mountain vale where the Nam Khan River joins the upper Mekong. Here the ancient Royal Capital of Luang Prabang reposes as it has for over a thousand years.
The road had been open to safe public travel only a handful of months in the past 10 years. We were fortunate to be in Laos in the late summer of 1974 during the brief coalition between the Royal Government forces and the Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas; a quiet in the storm of Indo-Chinese wars.
Yet ominous stories of the road had reached us all through Asia There were various versions of travelers being killed, of a truck being blown up -- or attacked by robbers, or tribesmen, or Communist guerrillas.
By the time we arrived in Vientiane, we had all but given up hope of making the journey overland. But the road was still there, the buses were still running, and local word was that no travelers had been harmed in months.
My girlfriend Jean and I decided to have a go at the road. Our companions chose instead to take their chances on the plane -- an old DC-3 which seemed to me no less dangerous. As it happened, the plane broke down before it could take off and they followed us up the road the following day.
There are no actual buses in Laos. Public transportation is by "beemo", a small Japanese pickup truck with seats in the back and canvas over the top. The 'bus' for Luang Prabang left "most every morning" about 6:30 near the Afternoon Market. The cost was 4,000 Kip ($4) -- and it was worth every Kip.
We arrived at the market in the early morning drizzle and eventually found the only truck claiming Luang Prabang as its destination. It had been raining intermittently for several days and there was some question -- mostly among the drivers -- as to whether the bus would go that day.
We found a man who spoke a little English and inquired how long the trip would take. "Well, you see, because of much rain, maybe nine, ten hours." This put our minds at ease, but his matter-of-fact tone belied his certain amusement. For no one really knows how long it will take. A day perhaps, perhaps two days or more. One might estimate the number of days by examining the tires. But no one really cares. You leave here, and eventually you get there; in between you enjoy the journey as best you can.
Though the trip is highly uncomfortable, dirty, and tedious, even less intrepid travelers find it a marvelous experience. Our first lesson was not to be in a rush, not to even think of the time at all. The lesson was not just patience -- the trip was far too much for mere patience to endure -- but timelessness.
We lashed all the packs to the top of the truck and piled in, twelve strong, including our young drivers. The bus pulled away and drove through the back streets, picking up a young helper along the way. Next we stopped while the driver disappeared into his house for some time, then we took on gasoline, and ultimately reappeared at the Afternoon Market to take on one more straggling passenger. Then off again, with a bolt, this time out onto the open road north.
Five minutes out of town we bounced off the last bit of paved road, and five minutes later we stopped at the first in a long string of military check points. Here the driver collected our passports and identity cards and disappeared into the guardhouse. We waited in the truck for what seemed an excruciatingly long time.
At last he emerged, all smiles, and we bolted off again, the truck churning and bumping along at an alarming clip, jostling everything about inside. Yet the speedometer revealed our maximum speed to be 40 kph -- down to 15 kph when careening around tight corners, with frequent crawls through mud holes and bad road. But the whole road was bad!
The first stage of the road follows the narrow Nam Ngum River, and crosses it at every opportunity. Bridges sat well above the washed out road and more than once we had to shore up the tires to mount a bridge. With 230 kilometers to go, we soon realized that it would take forever. It did, and no one cared.
Least of all our drivers. These young boys in their dark blue outfits and military caps are the buccaneers of this highway; every youngster's idol. And they knew it. Our first driver was slim, with soft but well defined features and flashing eyes. At the next checkpoint, he jumped out to buy some of the dreaded orange chicken on a stick. Now, as we jolted along, he ate with one hand, drove with the other, and joked with his fellows in the back.
With his eyes on the chicken, he steered us too fast into a tight turn, then jerked the wheel and sent us careening off the road, blowing out a front tire. This set the other boys wild with laughter, and they taunted and poked the driver as they surveyed the damage.
So this was how it was going to be. Still, we got a brief respite to stretch and relieve ourselves while they changed the tire. Already our kidneys had taken quite a beating. The job done, we squeezed back into the truck, braced for the next leg of the journey. We stopped again at a small village a few kilometers up the road, where they had equipment to repair the ruptured tire. There was another delay, but it would soon be to our advantage.
A few hours later, we drove into a mudhole in the middle of the road and sank in up to the axles. We all piled out and, ankle deep in the rich brown ooze, tried pushing the truck while our frenetic driver spun the wheels until one of the rear tires exploded. By this time our little catastrophe had somehow become humorous. We lolled about the disaster area, grinning to our fellow castaways. But it was all our young drivers could muster to keep from falling over in the mud in convulsions of laughter.
Sitting by the river, watching the hills, we waited for help. From whom or where no one knew, but help would come -- eventually. Worries are foreign and useless to the Laotians. They just push on, always smiling affably and shrugging their shoulders.
Making the pilgrimage with us, (besides our three hysterical drivers), were two German college students, an Englishman, a portly Indian merchant, and four Laotians, including two small boys out on their own. Along the way, however, we took on and left off a large assortment of gun-toting young soldiers, country farmers, and hill tribes people. They filled the truck and the rear bumper most of the way, hanging out in the rain and mud.
One old Meo tribesman kept us in awe by rolling and smoking a continuous stream of marijuana cigarettes during his several hours on board. While the rest of us suffered through our ordeal, he showed no effects of either the discomfort or the drug.
A road grader eventually came to our rescue and pushed us through the mud hole and out to relatively solid ground. We changed the tire, and the trek continued. After a few more hours, we rolled into Vang Vieng, the only real town along the road. Here we roamed the small marketplace in search of lunch. We never knew just how long we were staying, so we kept a close eye on the truck as we picked up some food for the road -- pomelos and fresh French bread filled with sweetened condensed milk.
Our Indian comrade found several friends to visit with in the nearby shops. Twice we left without him, only to circle the town and return to the market. He apparently knew just when the truck was really leaving, for he ran and jumped in as we pulled out for the last time.
Vang Vieng lies considerably less than half the way to Luang Prabang, but the afternoon was well upon us and we still had the mountains to cross. Yet the scenery was exquisite, and thoughts of time became lost in the lush valleys of rice fields and the forested hills that rose on either side. Scattered grass and bamboo huts merged into the green and brown countryside.
Just beyond Vang Vieng, rising straight up beside the narrowing river valley, hauntingly magnificent 'Chinese' mountains poked through the hazy clouds. Here were the kind mountains I thought only existed on oriental landscape scrolls, or in the minds of dreamers. The hours crawled on and so did we, through intermittent drizzle and rain showers that obliged us to roll down the canvas flaps and swelter in the vaporous heat.
As the day waned, we stopped for dinner in a muddy little village. There was a small makeshift cafe where we got a bowl of very sticky rice (Lao style), and some fairly racy chicken stew. As we were eating, a group of soldiers rushed behind the building and several shots were heard from the forest beyond. Then a pause, and a few more shots before a man was hauled out from the trees, his hands bound behind him. He was surrounded by a cluster of soldiers and citizens, marching toward the barricaded Lao Army compound. Was he a spy, a deserter, or perhaps just a chicken thief? No one knows.
Just as we were leaving, another truck arrived, camouflaged in mud and heading south. An American on board announced that they had left Luang Prabang twelve hours before, but had broken down on the way. We had no more favorable prospects to report for the road south, and we could only exchange droll smiles.
Beyond this last outpost, the road twisted up through dense forests as we left the Plain of Jars far behind. Here were only a few subsistence villages carved from the jungle. We saw the simple huts of the Meo and Akha tribes people, and a string of military check points, manned by young boys, living off the jungle in low grass shelters. At each station papers were shown, passengers scrutinized, and bags occasionally searched.
In this fashion we wound our way up, climbing out of the humidity of the lowlands, into the evening chill of the mountains. Then suddenly -- it seemed sudden, although it had taken all day -- at dusk, we mounted a long ridge high above the clouds, on a par with mountain peaks on all sides. Seas of clouds lay low in the valleys all around. And beyond it all, on the edge of that cloudy sea, the sun set in a soft red glory. Such quiet splendor to match the calm eternity of the journey. Not long after sunset, the full moon climbed high above the misty veil. The entire scene remained visible in its soft white glow, and pockets of clouds shone up from the sleeping lowland valleys.
We passed through another check point, high on a mountain saddle, where two massive pieces of heavy artillery were perched, protruding out into the moonlight. Nearby lay the bombed-out ruins of an old French auberge on a panoramic knoll, littered with shell holes, tanks, and barbed wire. It was our last spectacle before we headed down into the darkened forest.
Our last good tire blew out about half the way down. We were exhausted, but our drivers only seemed to grow more rollicking with each new catastrophe. Here on this dark deserted stretch of mountain road deep in guerrilla territory, they were in hysterics as they tried to mend our last blown-out tire. They rolled on the ground in riotous laughter when the tire pump came up broken and they had to fix that as well. For some reason, pumping up the tire was too ludicrous for them to bear, and they collapsed on top of each other in convulsions of laughter.
By this time, we were all in the spirit, and we didn't much care if they ever fixed the tire or not. We were ready to sleep on the road if need be. Eventually they did get the tire fixed and we were off again into the dark forested night.
Several hours later, just as we sighted the distant lights of Luang Prabang, the truck pulled over in front of a farm house where we stopped for quite some time. Out on the verandah, our driver delivered a gift to a pretty young girl, had a drink, and joked with some local friends while we tried unsuccessfully to snooze out in the truck.
Then at last, somewhere in the early morning hours, we rolled unnoticed into Luang Prabang. The city lay sleeping, as we so longed to do. We had arrived.
It had taken a full day, but it might have been two or three, and seemed like more. (Our friends for example, stopped over in Vang Vieng and had difficulty making connections. They spent one night huddling in their truck, stuck in the same mud hole we had escaped, and took two and a half days to reach Luang Prabang.) Yet it had been a splendid journey. The scenery was exquisite, the people warm, and our drivers most entertaining.
It had been such a rewarding experience, that after our leisurely stay in Luang Prabang, we couldn't resist going back again by road. The return trip appeared somewhat more promising. It hadn't rained for days, the sky was clear, the tires showed plenty of tread, and the driver was over thirty. We set out at 8 am, Jean and I and a woman from New Zealand, along with four Meo tribes people. We picked up several soldiers and a few villagers along the way.
Then, as we were still climbing up into the mountains, a front wheel bearing went out on the truck and we had to stop for repairs. We all looked on as the driver removed the tire and disassembled the wheel. But there was nothing else to do. He sent his young helper back to town for new parts. But what town? Luang Prabang, of course.
And so it was that we sat by the road side, talking, not talking, eating pomelo and sweetened bread, and watching the colorful iridescent insects of the jungle. Our driver, a heavy middle-aged man, was quite congenial and somewhat sympathetic. He wanted to talk with us, perhaps to explain, or apologize, or maybe just to chat. But we shared not a word -- except our single Lao phrase, "Bo pen yong"... 'It doesn't matter.' It seemed quite appropriate.
Others abandoned ship, catching rides back to town on passing trucks, until only we three foreigners and the Meo people remained. Their fate, like ours, rode with that truck, and we had to stay with it. One woman went into the jungle, cut a length of bamboo, and deftly fashioned a water pipe. She sat by the side of the road in her simple black costume, smoking tobacco in long deep puffs.
Time passed, I suppose. At any rate, the sun climbed high into the sky. Five hours later, the boy returned, they fixed the wheel, and we went on once more.
At dark we pulled into the same little cafe again. In hand signs, the driver explained to us that we would stay there for the night and start on again at 6 am. We subdued our hunger with some hot noodle soup with fresh jungle greens, more sticky rice, and coffee. The young Meo boys with us were very shy and self-conscious; they spoke no Lao and were not accustomed to buying meals in cafes, no matter how crude.
For 300 Kip (30 cents), we spent the night on thatch mats in the back, next to the proprietors. They even provided a mosquito coil. We awoke to the sunrise and started off early the next morning on the long day's drive to Vientiane.
Vientiane was somewhat less charming in the dusty glare of the sunlight than it had been in the cool rains of our first several days. Or perhaps the bleaching sunshine only pointed up the contrast between even this restful outpost of civilization, and the Shangri-la mood of Luang Prabang and the countryside of Laos.