Every Laos sleeper bus story eventually admits the same thing — nobody actually plans to end up folded against the wheel well, and yet here we all are.
Funny I should meet them at the border. One would think I was just waiting for them to arrive. I’ve been loitering outside the bus station for hours. I’ve become an expert, a resident; I know the fruit lady by her maiden name. Any travelers looking lost or confused surely need my aid. I have memorized the schedule and learned the colors and stripes, make and model of all the bus companies headed to Laos.
I can see it in their eyes, that look of surprise, so sure that on this side of the world they’ll be safe. “Not getting past this line,” I tell them, branch in hand, “till you show me some ID.”
Why am I harassing this young Mexican bride and her. . . Mexican bride, waving this lychee branch with the authority of a conductor’s baton at these perplexed foreigners who would basically do anything I say because I know the buses, appear to be Asian, and have been speaking in perfect Engrish the entire time?
“Where’s the honeymoon?” I ask them casually, my jaws working like a piston at a piece of gum, my pen making nonsensical doodles on the clipboard. I smile and noisily breathe clouds of minty freshness in their direction so that it fogs their sunglasses.
“We are trying to find the bus to Luang Prabang,” the biker chick with the pompadour says, trilling her R’s in a Latin accent. Her sleeves are rolled back to hold a pack of smokes while revealing some freshly jabbed honeymoon ink.
“Bus four-two-zero! Luang Prabang!” I shout to no one in particular. “Right behind you.” I nod over their startled heads.
“You work for the bus?” the frizz with glasses asks me.
“Only on weekends.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
At that moment, the bus driver shows up and I hand him his clipboard and quietly avoid his gaze. The bus fills up fast. Whatever I did to her, whatever offense I committed, the lady back at the ticketing office is now sticking it right back to me with this assignment of a wheel seat. A poke in the eye with a lychee branch couldn’t send a clearer signal. Am I just some driftwood to be tossed in the corner or stuffed under a seat, locked in a closet without a key? Sixteen hours over potholes and stray dogs, into the hill country of the Laotian plateaus, the possible discovery of an old landmine by bus tire. Why should she deny me leg room? What have I done for her to treat me this way?
If there’s a universal law to every Laos sleeper bus story, it’s this: whatever seat you’re assigned, someone somewhere decided you deserved it.
The only solution is to steal someone’s seat. I decide on some prime real estate located near the middle of the bus, equidistant from bumper to wheel, the farthest I can possibly be from the accursed shaft. Why should I suffer for the sake of economy? Sacrificial lambs randomly selected to burn for the serenity of the flock, to watch as other passengers stretch and cuddle in sleeper cabins on either side.
My shoes are already off. I’ve come to stretch out. There’s a no-nonsense attitude to the smell of my own feet now. Just as with all the basics of daily life, I sleep on some sort of conveyance, spend the next half day/full day/all night riding towards somewhere, never stopping, never knowing why. I eat my humble meals of cookies and fruit and appreciate every calorie, every inch my toes can reach out into space without obstruction. If only I could find someone to spoon.
I sense someone beside my bunk. I spread the curtains open and stare haughtily without removing my sleeping mask.
“Can I help you?”
“I think you’re in our seats,” the Asian guy says in perfect English.
My blood freezes. My face pales behind my mask.
“Excuse me?”
“I believe you’re in our seats. You see?”
He shows me his ticket.
“Y-your English is perfect,” I stammer, suddenly filled with dread, pretending to give my ticket a second glance. “Ah! Yes! I make mistake! So sorry! So sorry!”
I laugh nervously, wondering if they see through this charade.
He takes a look at my ticket to be helpful. He’s tall and has the type of physique polo shirts were made for. His curled forelocks remind me of an Asian Clark Kent.
“It’s towards the back,” he says cheerfully. “I think it’s there, near the wheel.”
“You sure know your way around the bus! So sorry!” I chirp ridiculously.
“No problem,” he smiles, and waits as I put my sneakers back on, deodorize the area, and slink over to my circular penance.
I feel the bus starting. I can feel every pebble in the road vibrating through my spine. I lie with my back forced into an arch like a compulsory yoga position. My knees hang suspended above my chest. I can feel the torrent of air from the open bus windows entering in and out of my spread anus without any delay or hurry. I can breathe this way like a fish breathes through gills. I am one with the road. I have become a question mark, asking the question to anyone who can understand. Perhaps it was destiny after all that we should have met this way. Not even now do I fully comprehend the mechanics of the wheel, the way it turns and bends your body to go where it’s going, unless you can keep your feet moving at such a speed as to just dance on top of it. But sooner or later, you flatten out and curve your back and spin around and around and around.
Which is really the ending every Laos sleeper bus story deserves — not a lesson learned, just a body folded into the shape of the road itself.
Further reading:
- Luang Prabang — UNESCO World Heritage — background on the destination this bus is headed toward