May 2011
Bumped and shaken for eleven hours on a bus over the torturous mountain road between the towns of Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos, I had ample time to reflect on the vicissitudes of independent travel in Southeast Asia. I was one of only three westerners riding the bus that day, and if the ride itself were not enough, my seatmate, a young male Lao, was a narcoleptic whose head kept lolling on my shoulder. To complete the picture, the peasant woman in front of me had reclined her setback all the way. Then the driver’s young assistant came up the aisle passing out barf bags, and I knew I this would not be one of my happiest travel days.
