the village sons

we left vang vieng (well technically caro, livvy and i left twice) with a reminder of the worlds 5th dirtiest river - pink eye. conjunctivitus rages through the travelling community with the spirit of a far more virulent disease and no sooner had the boys confined themselves to the godfather trilogy and eyedrops (fortunately free market economics has blessed vangvieng with a thriving pharmaceutical trade) than lizzie caught it and three days later, despite the new 24hr sunglasses look, precautionary amoxcilyn ($1/course of 12; i think the NHS should be looking for a new supplier) and eyedrops it managed to hop across the bed and over Bells to me. So it was with a weeping pair of eyes that late in the day having unsuccessfully tried to group moped to the blue lagoon (only Eric, ali and I made it and that was only because we had conceded moped defeat and taken a tuktuk down the dirt track, through a couple of chicken coups, over the rice paddies and through the rivers) that Caro, Livvy and I bid the others farewell and heading for the bus station bound, we hoped, for Vientiane.

Our tuktuk driver assured us that the local bus would come at 8/8.30 but we were a little uneasy, especially since at 6.30 we could already here the omnious rolls of thunder bringing the nightly downpour. No matter, we took refuge in bus shelter and consulted the timetable which informed us that the last bus did indeed leave at 2.30. The tuktuk drivers swooped. Our friends had done the journey to Vangvieng in a tuktuk with 14 passengers, their collective worldly possessions and a monsoon so we knew it was possible. 30,000 kip we bleated weakly; afterall this was the price of the local bus which in the event of a crash was larger and having walls considerably sturdier. Friendly tuktuk driver weakly agreed - he looked ill. However the younger ones laughed theatrically and scared him away. The tuktuk drivers scanned over their quarry, deciding that we looked like we could pay more and so they retreated to the edge of the compound for a group discussion over cheap cigarettes. 20minutes later, armed with the offering of Livs last cigarettes I ventured into the fray; 40,000kip. They laughed again and shouted random numbers, the air grew tenser from a combination of the random numbers issuing out of each of their mouths and the coming storm. Fine, we'll sleep here and get the first bus out - 'where is the nearest room to rent?' They replied with a chorus of 10,000 for the journey back to town. We thought that the shacks and shops opposite looked more promising. We were wrong. By 9.30 we were back in Vangvieng centre with the music of the Qbar ringing in our ears as we fell to sleep. Or rather in my case i fell to the task of mopping up my eyes, rubbing in the teramycin cream, flushing with eyedrops and snatching intermittent bouts of sleep. I was also fuming that the cash machine had stolen my money having processed a withdrawal (fortunately about 12 pounds) but not cashed it; I knew this since it had happened to a boy who had been so persistent in using the faulty machine that he cleared his entire current account without seeing a single 1,00kip note. In the morning Caro had pink eye too. This was not to be a happy 6am start particularly since the particularly vicious monsoon rains (thundering down whilst claps of thunder so loud they resembled tuktuks being hurled around the floor above were illuminated by the lighting striking the town) the previous night were not entirely finished. However, a little luck; our tuktuk stopped half way executed a perfect Uturn and crashed into the back of a bus - this was apparently intentional since the driver got out good naturedly and loaded on our backs - this was the 6am local service to Vientiane.

At first we thought that we had boarded the world's slowest bus as it chugged down the main streets, horn tooting whilst Laotian karaoke blared out across the deserted streets but thankfully the bus speed up and music turned off as we left vangvieng for the assortment of roadside villages on route 13 to Vientiane. We largely slept, but i also found time to finish off the brothers Karamazoz (or more aptly their father) - i finally understand most of what Hargreaves was talking about at AS history - however, the only point of note in the journey was not to be a whole cow or chicken farm boarding but the village sons all trooping on, some wide eyed, others a little more bleary from a nondescript stop. They must have been every male between 14 and 19 in the village and the back seats groaned from the weight of the plastic weave sacks they leaned against. I amused myself by speculating as to their fate. I, perhaps a little romantically, decided they were either destined for novice training and that the sacks contained alms for the monks as payment or that they were being sent with everything to make their way in life in the big city. Each dwelling aroused their greatest scrutiny although the elder ones attempted nonchalence in their luminous nike tops and gelled hair, I noticed they were the last to step off the bus and search out their final destination.