Afternoon Near Death Experience

So, today we decided to set off for some waterfall action and thus we made our way down the main street of Luang Prubang to find the suitable rickshaw driver to take us. He was promptly located and we started off on the 30km drive into the country side. As we were rolling away we were talking about why don't we take rickshaws all the way to Vang Vien, 150km away, a drive that will take another nine hours due to random stoppage and other inexplicable events. After the drive both of us also admitted also thinking in private just how shit it would be to get into an accident with a vehicle like that regardless how fast and freeing the travel may be. Maybe hindsight is always 20:20 or maybe the driver was more crap than the average, leaning hard into the turns and swerving all over the road, giving us a good intuitive idea of what was to come.

Sure enough, 25km into the drive we came upon a vehicle parked on the side of the road. We came a bit closer, and a bit closer, as someone on the back of a glorified pickup one would and we did pay attention to the road and both kept staring at that parked truck coming closer and closer. As we got just to that point where one is close enough to start thinking about swerving out off the way, I saw the driver drop a tissue out of the window of his little cabin and I thought to myself, oh that is littering, bohoo! Three split seconds I had a whole different dilemma on my mind. There was still this pickup truck parked on the road and we were getting closer, definitely now having arrived at the moment where now one has to crank the wheel hard to avoid a nice little crash, an unnerving situation as a passenger. Does the driver dude really not see this truck? It turns out, he does not. He must still be hanging out the window blowing snot or littering or who knows, because we keep going, going, going, straight for it, all of a sudden it's not longer, holy shit, we are getting too close, it's fucking hell, we are crashing right into it and there is nothing we can do in our little metal cage to prevent it. There are bars stopping me from flying straight off the truck and there are bars holding up a rain cover in the middle of the truck and shit, which ones do I hold on to first?

As we slam into the truck, there is that scary second where I think we are going to slip and flip and then the driver wakes up and manuevers us into a ditch, thankfully without a drop off into any major abyss. We come to a halt. A giant piece of metal had come loose from the truck that we hit and cut up the entire side where newly acquired husband is sitting, slicing the seat he was on in half, without cutting him. He too apparently opted to hold on to the middle rail as had I. I only have a mark on my arm where I must have slammed into the railing and newly acquired husband is miraculaously completely uninjured, but both of us and mostly the driver are a mess. Not that anything happened, it's more the realization of how close we came to flipping over and flying out of a truck in a rural, poor, isolated country that has not a single medical facility up to snuff and just how fast fun and games and adventures can turn into a medical disaster. God knows we have ridden on a multitude of unsafe, overloaded vehicles cruising into night and fog without lights or seat belts to comfort one and it has been fun all the way.

With slightly shaky legs we were climbed into a new tuck tuck already loaded high with tourists which drove us to the amazing waterfalls where we wallowed in icy floods slightly shell shocked at how closely we diverted disaster. Our tuck tuck man deserted back to the city to bemoan his scratched and dented up vehicle.

We just had one more beer Laos and booked ourselves on a bus ride to Vang Vien on a VIP bus in hopes that that somehow means an increase in the safety precautions. Funny how it only takes a little jolt to remind one of one's own mortality.