I realise that so many of our blogs involve pretty awful bus journeys but the journey from Nong Khiaw to Luang Nam Tha was the mother of all hellish bus journeys. It actually pains me slightly to relive the journey for the blog but Bryan is refusing to write it in case it emasculates him somewhat.

We trusted Mang to sort out our bus journey to Luang Nam Tha. We told him 2 days before where we wanted to go and he assured us he would sort it. He told us the best way to get there was if he took us to a big bus station about an hour away then the bus from there would take 6 hours rather than having to stay overnight and change buses if we made our own way from Nong Khiaw. So we set ourselves up to leave at 6pm like he told us, except he had fallen asleep so we didn't end up leaving until 7pm. Turns out it didn't matter because when we got to the bus station our bus was due at 9.30. They also confirmed it would take 9 hours not 6 as Mang had told us. Ever the optimist, Mang said at least we would save money on a nights accommodation.

Anyway we had a long wait so we went to get some food. However, I had a dodgy tummy all day and the last thing I wanted was a problem on a bus with no toilet so I opted not to eat from the fly infested restaurant at the bus station. Our bus eventually showed up at 10.30 with no spare seats! There was chaos for about 15 minutes with all of us who wanted to get on being told to wait by some people and to get on by others. No one seemed to know what was going on. I didn't fancy a 9 hour bus journey without a seat, at the same time the next bus was at 9am which again may have no seats. No one spoke English but some guys took our bags and shoved them right to the back of the bus and ushered us on. There were loads of sacks down the aisles (it is quite common for food to be transported on local buses) and we just had to sit down on these.

We all eventually managed to cram in but within 10 minutes they then stopped off for food. Here they moved the sacks to the floors of the seats and jammed in little plastic stools down the aisles. To be honest this made it worse as there was even less space. There were so many people in the aisle that the only way we could both sit on the stools was to have Bryan's stool in between my legs. This meant every time the bus turned a corner my legs were crushed against the seats next to me. A few miles down the road and I had lost all feeling in my legs. This wasn't going to work for 9 hours. I suggested to Bryan that we should stack the stools and take it in turns for one of us to stand up which would create more space. He insisted on standing up the whole time. On to the next problem. It was stiflingly hot in the aisles and none of the air from the windows was reaching me, I could barely breath. Put this together with the fact I'd been ill so hadn't eaten a thing for 24 hours and not had a proper meal in 48 hours and it's not a good combination. I began to feel light headed and I knew I was either going to pass out or be sick, or both! Bryan managed to move to give me enough space to bend down and almost have my head between my legs. I stayed on the verge, floating in and out of consciousness for a couple of hours until the bus stopped as the engine was overheating. I pushed my way off the bus and sat on the road breathing in the air. I didn't vomit as I had nothing in me to come out but was dry heaving which caused some concern to the people stood near me on the bus! I was pretty hysterical by this point and refusing to get back on the bus. However, it was the middle of the night and we were in the middle of nowhere (where apparently tigers, leopards and bears roam) so Bryan managed to talk me back on the bus.

It was 2.30am before we got to the first stop where people got off. Again I raced off the bus to get some air but Bryan cunningly stayed behind to get us some seats. They weren't together and Bryan had no leg room but we had a seat each. We both instantly fell asleep and when we next woke up it was 5.45am and we had stopped at what I thought were services. It was another 100km after that before we realised that that was Luang Nam Tha, our stop! No one told us where we were! We then had to wait for the next big town before we could get off since we weren't sure if we would be able to get back. So we had to pay for another 4 hour bus to get back to Luang Nam Tha. We were supposed to get there at 6am but got there 4.30pm. Bit of a nightmare. If we didn't have a flight booked from there I certainly wouldn't have bothered going to all that effort.

And it probably wasn't worth the effort. It's a really small town and the only reason that tourists go there is the nearby trekking and "ecotourism". The main road consists of mainly travel agent shops. Given that I still wasn't very well we had to rule out going on any treks. It's way too hot anyway. There was an open market selling street food where we ate the night we arrived (our first meal in forever!). We bought a whole BBQ chicken and she used a massive meat cleaver and bam bam bam it was in little pieces in seconds. We also had a kilo of sticky rice plus an uber fresh mango shake. Unfortunately I had no appetite so Bryan ate most of it.

With not a lot else to do in walking distance we hired a scooter again and whizzed about the little nearby bamboo hut villages and looked at some temples. We also went to a waterfall. Since it had just rained we went armed with a lighter in case of leeches. It was ridiculously humid and the rocks were slippery but it'd be worth it for the waterfall right?...wrong! Turns out it has dried up. Funny how no one told us that when we paid our entrance fee!

Well at least we made our flight and it was running pretty much to schedule. The airport was pretty retro. It was absolutely tiny and instead of computers they logged everything using good old fashioned pen and paper. I was so happy to be taking a flight which cut out what would have been yet another long bus journey!