I left Thailand on a night train headed to Loas. It was my first time to be alone for 3 weeks...it was a very strange experience. I enjoyed being with my friends soooo much. We became like family and those memories will be forever etched in my mind. But I was excited to take my own adventure!!! I LOVE adventure, I'm sure that's a surprise to you;-) So, my night train...well, let's just say that night trains in Thailand are a little different from China. China night trains are very comfortable to me...I love to sleep on the train. I get a hard bed sleeper and sleep all night:-) But this night train was a little different. they told me they only had soft sleepers...so I thought this would be nice...ha...it was like I was being rocked all night...I could feel every stop and turn and almost thought I cold feel the wind hit my face through the cracks:-)I'm sure that wasn't happening though:-) I had bought "The Hiding Place", the biography of Corrie Ten Boom, at a used book store in Thailand and read most of it the first night on the train:-) I was just loving the time of quiet and relaxing! It's no fun to read when your friends are around so I was taking advantage of my alone time. I love that book and hadn't read it since my mom read it to my sister and I as a little girl. After I arrived on the border of Thailand and Laos I had a very easy border cross. Customs was pretty much a man who looked at me and then I walked mast him:-) I got another stamp in my passport and headed to my next train that took me to Vientiane, Laos. This train was awesome! All the windows open and lots of different people...it was only about 15min and we arrived. I had arranged a taxi to pick me up and take me into the city. The funniest thing was that my taxi was a little short bed pick up truck and my seat was in the bed...holding on to the side of the truck:-) I loved it!!! It took us about 30min to get to the street where the hostels were. I walked around and found a place to stay. This little city was such a mystery to me. Many foreigners, tourists, and many people who were soooo lost. It was written all over them. Many monks and temples. I knew that my time here was for a bigger purpose than I had realized.
Vientiane is right on the Me Khong river. I took lots of walks by the river and all over this little city! The days were very nice...I sat by the river and read my book and then went to a little local coffee shop and read more:-) Very relaxing...there wasn't much more to do here. I chose to come through Laos because I really wanted to experience the culture here and also because i really wanted to get into China through this route! I had planned on taking a bus from Vientiane to Kunming to day after I arrived but the bus was delayed one day so I had an extra day here. I PR walked the city for many hours.
Another shot from the river but this one is at sunset. When the sun went down this little family filled city turned into a very different place. There were many prostitutes on the streets and other filthy things that went on. I had not experienced the darkness that this city contained in such a deep way before. It really opened my eyes to just how on guarded we need to be and that sin is such a destructive thing. Like I said, I know the meaning of my time here was for much more than I originally thought. I PR there are people here sharing the truth. Please join me in this PR!!! The people need HIM!
So the day came for me to take my CRAZY 38hr. bus from Vientiane to Kunming! I was sooooo excited! I had seen these nice bed busses and had an idea of what mine would be...but to my amazement, when I arrived at the bus station we passed up all the nice busses and they dropped me off at this bus:-( I was thinking as we pulled up "Oh Dear Lord you are kidding me, right?". But, He wasn't kidding...LOL my bus was very crazy...I don't know if you can see from the picture but the beds are in 3 rows and about 18in. wide. But you see, my bed is where the pic is taken from and I was int he very back. My bed, along with the 4 other people that slept with me, didn't have sides!!! We were in like one "big" bed...the width of the bus....5 of us:-( Oh My Word is all I thought as they yelled at me and told me to get to the back...ha! I was the only "foreign" looking person on the bus. Everyone was chinese except one guy from Thailand. But everyone thought he was chinese because he looked the same and he spoke chinese very well. But to my excitement he also spoke a little english. i found this out because of a slight problem I had:-( You see...if you remember back to my Thailand blog you will remember my sun poisoning. Well, my legs looked like I was shedding a layer of skin(or to someone who wasn't used to sun burns, it looked like I had a horrible disease!!!). When the couple next to me got in "our" bed the lady looked at me and I thought she was gonna scream. She started speaking chinese like crazy and I could understand enough to know she thought I was going to give her this horrible disease and there was NO WAY she was sleeping next to me fot 38hrs!! So i quickly said, "can any one speak English?" and the guy on the opposite side of "our" bed said he could a little. I told him about my sun burn and asked him if he could explain to her in chinese what was wrong...lol. Then she laughed and smiled at me and then quickly scolded me and told me never to go in the sun again!!! Oh and she reminded me of this throughout the trip:-) "Thank you mother", I thought:-) Chinese women are very bossy...I fit in well here:-) So the bus and I had a pretty hard battle the first night. You see Laos is pretty much all dirt roads and mountains...and huge buses are not really the perfect vehicle to cross that kind of terrain...but, after being up all night because of all the air time I got as the bus hit every bump and my head hit the roof of the bus, I remembered how much I love adventure and got over myself!
The trip was amazingly beautiful!!! I LOVED seeing all the Father's creation and at night i could see more stars than I have ever seen in my life...if you know me, you know I and a geek about stars:-) I could look at them for hours and never get tired of it.
This is a side view of the bus that I took on one of our VERY few bathroom breaks...and when I say bathroom I really mean side of the road in the bushes...the best "restroom" we used was a ditch divided by half walls and the girls had on and the boys had one...we all got to know each other more than I would have liked:-(...lol next Blog...CHINA!!!!
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