The next leg of the journey was to get out of Mong Ngoi and head west to the town of Luang Nam Tha. Although Luang Nam Tha is only 110 kilometers west of Mong Ngoi, this journey required one boat ride and two bus transfers. The problem with bus transfers in Laos is that there is no bus schedule.
Buses leave when they are full. We estimated that it would take us about twelve hours in total, if all went well, and we were determined to make it the whole way in one day.
By 10am we had completed the boat ride and one short bus ride. The plan was to wait on the corner where busses came from the south, find one that was turning left and shout for it to stop. Funny thing is, this worked. I was in the middle of a plate of beans and sticky rice, but Max ran after the already full pick up truck and started negotiating with the driver to let us on. I shoved one more handful of sticky rice into my mouth and ran over to assist. The truck was already packed full of people and food (livestock, grains, et al) and one guy was making the journey from standing on the platform attached to the fender. The passengers inside the truck looked frightened as Max seemed to be making headway in getting the driver to take us. Actually, he was loading our bags on and shoving money in the drivers hand, which in the end, got us on our way.
Max sat on top of his own backpack and I sat on a bag of rice wedged in between him and a monk's knees,our legs dangling out of the back of the truck. The four hour journey to the next city was bumpy but not as unpleasant as I had imagined. The monk got on splendidly. I pulled out the two pages of Laos language lessons in the back of the Lonely Planet and pretty soon we were counting to fifty together and reading through lists of meats and vegetables. When that got old, Max and I sang sappy American songs, our voices thankfully swallowed by the wind out the back of the truck. This gave the idea to the monk that we liked music, and when we took a breather, he whipped a tape player out of his monk sack and started blasting Asian pop music with a proud smile.
No bus trip in Asia would be complete without Asian pop played at full volume through muddy speakers. We got into it anyway, bopping to the music and trying to pick out or make up English words and sing along.
At the end of the line, I said goodbye to the wrong monk (the shaved head and orange gowns are hard to tell apart) and we made our connection all the way to Luang Nam Tha with time for a plate of vegetable fried rice to spare. We were dirty dusty and tired, but we splurged for luxury accomodations and by nine o'clock, had had hot showers and were eating curry and sticky rice by candlelight. There was still that lack of electricity thing going on.
