We jumped onto our bus in Hanoi excited and raring to get to Laos. Alex and Rose had sent us off with the best snack pack ever and we were sure that the next 30 hours of traveling would pass in a heart beat. Too good to be true, within half an hour of being on the bus a guy we had just met scared the crap out of us with his drug-smuggling horror stories. Apparently we were taking the exact route that some girl had done when someone slipped some drugs into her bag. She is currently in prison somewhere in Laos! This may not have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that it was now pitch black outside, there were only five tourists on the bus and that it kept stopping at all these decidedly dodgy spots. We later found out that they were putting livestock under the bus, not drugs in our bags. Kat and Imy 1, Laos 0.
After only 24 hours we arrived in Luang Prabang. We couldn't believe we'd arrived a whole 6 hours early! Kat and Imy 2, Laos 0. We refueled on some noodles, headed to our nicely air-conditioned room (we splashed out because we're worth it) and promptly fell asleep.
We spent the next day enjoying a wander round Luang Prabang and enjoying all it had to offer.
 |
| Maybe the Mekong Delta |
 |
| Temple prancer |
 |
| Luang Prabang |
Being the keen biker chicks that we are, we decided to hire some mopeds and go on an adventure to the waterfall. This is when it all went wrong. An evil cretin of a man, who we wish serious harm to, rode up beside Imy and forced her to stop by cutting her up and making her slam on the brakes. He then jumped off his motorbike and took out a knife, grabbing Imy's bag off her back. Kat realised what was going on, dropped her still-running bike and started wailing like a banshee as she ran towards the crime scene, arms flailing and all. They both looked up, in shock of the stupidity, before he carried on the brutal mugging. Imy was an absolute trooper throughout and was a pillar of strength for the distraught Kat. I think that makes it Kat and Imy 2, Laos 2,000,000.
We carried on to the waterfall as we were only 4km away. It was pretty hard to care about the waterfall after what had happened but we tried to dry Kat's puffy eyes and took a quick look, hoping to find someone to ride back with. Luckily, we met back up with the group of boys off the bus and they took us under their wing and rode back with us.
 |
| The waterfall |
 |
| Sunies hiding the pain |
We went straight to the police station to file a report. They seemed nice enough and told us to come back the next day to collect the report, once the officer's captain had a chance to look over it. We did just that, but the mother fudgers well and truly screwed us over. They refused to give Imy the report, which she needs to claim back what she's lost on insurance! They were really horrible to us and sent us away with nothing. Not wanting to spend another second in Luang Prabang, we got straight on the bus to Vang Vieng.
Fingers crossed tubing will cheer us up a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment