The Cargo Carrier

We lurch to a sudden stop. For the third time in fifteen minutes. We’ve barely left Laos’ sleepy capital, Vientiane. At each stop, we pick up something different; another passenger, a few boxes of fruit or several crates of flavoured milk. This time, the driver’s assistant brings a large, brown box through the door and places it in the aisle near my feet. I can hear scratching coming from the box. There is something alive in there? The petite woman sitting across from me notices my alarm, grins and lifts one flap of the box with her hand. It’s the chirping that surprises me first and then the two dozen baby chicks scrambling over each other to find the light. The box is quickly closed again by a flick of her foot.

Two friends and I are on our way to Thakhek, a town near the centre of the country on the Mekong River. Our bus is run by a local company and tickets are too reasonably priced. Some of the windows are without glass. Nobody’s complaining as there is no fan or air conditioner and the missing panes provide much-needed airflow, when the bus is moving, that is.“Sabaidee! Sabaidee! Hello! Hello!” the local children shout; all smiles and waves as we drive past them, through tiny villages and herds of cattle, past rural clinics and countryside schools.

After another while, we stop for the fourth time. Street vendors hop on to ply their wares. There is an elderly woman selling ice-cold water and baguettes stuffed with pork floss, meat pate and cucumber, a tiny taste of French colonial influence. Another woman seems to be advertising some sort of natural medicine to the men on the bus. None of the female passengers are offered her product. A teenage girl is trying to get rid of her few sticks of chewing gum. The young man sitting behind me buys two sticks and offers me a piece. I am struck by the incredibly long nails on each of his ‘pinky’ fingers and the unnecessary kindness of his gesture.

We are not the only foreigners on board. Near the rear of the vehicle, sit four other backpackers. We all exchange concerned looks as the smell of burning rubber wafts through the open windows. A rusty red tool box appears from a side compartment near the front of the bus and the driver’s assistant crawls under the bus. The humidity shows on our faces and the air is thick with dust. It’s a long wait before we’re on the road again.

And it’s a short one before we stop once more. It appears to be an emergency ablution break for our driver who hurriedly jumps down from his seat, grabs the roll of toilet paper from the dashboard and heads into the bush. My friends and I share what we hope is a discreet chuckle. No one else even moves.

The local passengers appear unfazed as we hurtle around hairpin bends and swerve to miss potholes. Then, thud. Crunch. Something’s fallen from underneath the bus. The truck behind us has ridden over it. We soon learn it’s only a few boxes of banana milk and not our luggage. The undamaged cartons are swiftly retrieved by the driver’s assistant and repacked inside the bus, the salvaged but dented cartons passed out among the passengers and we are on our way again.

When next we come to a halt, it is with expectation, not disbelief, that we watch two dust-covered scooters hoisted onto the roof of our bus. It’s a smooth and polished system, this, albeit rather extraordinary in our eyes. The trip from Laos’ capital city should take four hours at most, we were told. We’ve been on the bus for over seven, my watch says. I remember the cardboard box of baby chicks. They must be hungry and thirsty. The box is gone. The man with the long fingernails is playing a game on his mobile phone and the sound is turned up loud. We have no idea where we are and have lost count of the number of stops. But no matter, we’ll soon be off again.