Independence is a three-letter word.

I bought my first car when I was 20. A nifty little second-hand silver Nissan Primera which had been lovingly keyed down one side. (On occassion I reassured passengers the damage was there when I bought it - no one disliked me that much, I didn't think.) I was fresh out of university and had secured my first proper job in the industry I studied to be in. I was all grown up.

I never needed a car until then - everywhere I needed to go was on a bus route or I got a ride with someone - parents mostly. Life until then was all right.

But then I got a car.

The door opened to a brave new world. A world of freedom, fluctuating petrol prices, car maintenance costs and speed limits my only oppressors. Life got even better. Want to go on a roadtrip? No problem. I have a car. Pop down to the supermarket? I'll drive.

A similar feeling came over me on our second day in Sri Lanka. Negombo, just north of Colombo, to be exact. Two friends and I opted out of the crowded local buses and decided to hire a car for 15 days to drive wherever we wanted around the island.

After some umming and ahhing over our other options (getting a driver + car - more expensive but we don't have to take the risk driving, taking the bus - cheaper, but well, shit) we convinced ourselves hiring a car was the perfect solution. The road doesn't look so busy, plus, they drive on the same side of the road as in all our respective countries - New Zealand, England and Singapore.

Now, I know what you're thinking - and other people have said this to us already - Why would you willingly choose to drive?? Aren't the roads crazy? Etc etc

The short answers are because its easier and no.

To be fair, after several months of not driving though I was a bit apprehensive and not too sure I'd be able to just get back behind the wheel, especially in a foreign country. But things just kind of fell back into place - like getting on a bicycle, as they say.

Now, in my few days of driving here I feel I've become somewhat of an expert in the Sri Lankan road rules. Here are some I've learned:

• Beeping your horn makes everything ok.
• You can overtake whenever you want, just beep a couple of times first.
• Stopping for pedestrians at crossings is completely optional.
• If you're a bus driver, you're allowed to be a jerk who overtakes at any time, anywhere (even when there's no need) and when there is an oncoming car forcing you to go back into your lane, other drivers have to slow down and let you back in. Jerks.  
• Also, if you're a bus driver you can go whatever speed you want and you will not get pulled over by police. Jerks.
• Also, if you're a bus driver it is your responsibility to make it as difficult as possible for any other driver to overtake you. Jerks.
• It is ok for bus drivers to stop at any moment to let people on and off without indicating. Jerks.
• Police will pull over a foreign female driver almost every time she decides she wants to drive.

Things haven't been all smooth driving since we got the car - not least because some of the roads are quite terrible and our car can't really handle it. We had a couple of minor problems with our Daihatsu van since we got it. The first was water in the air filter - actually caused by the owner of the company we hired it from. The second was well, my bad. I broke our only key in the drivers side door (because I'm too strong, I guess). At sunset. In a carpark on a hill half an hour away from our guesthouse. (We initially thought the key had broke in the ignition - a much bigger problem).

Luckily some helpful Sri Lankans were around to give us a hand. At first, because I've now been programmed to think this way, I wondered how much they'd want in exchange for helping. They genuinely wanted nothing which was very refreshing, but also made me want to give them something for staying past dark and helping people they had no obligation to help. (Reverse psychology?) (Well, actually, one of the guys asked to have one of our torches because it was dark and he and his wife still had to get back to their village.) I went with one of the guides, who worked at the historical site we visited, in a tuk-tuk to find an auto-electrician to hotwire our car while the other two stayed with the car. We found him about 10 minutes out of town at his house (which I felt bad about, but not as bad as it would be being stranded overnight on a hilltop carpark) and he was just finishing up with someone else who had also had some car problems.

After a bit of fiddling around the steering wheel by torchlight, the electrician was able to get the car started using the part of the key we still had. We went straight back to the guesthouse without even stopping for dinner for fear of more automobile problems. The next morning, dinnerless, breakfastless and hungry, we set about getting a new key cut and putting the steering back together and quickly. After a bit of misunderstanding with the auto-electrician in town, I ended up driving with the son of a cafe owner to find a guy to cut our key.

We found him, sitting on the ground under a rainbow umbrella outside a supermarket with a wooden box of his tools and uncut keys. The man, of about 60 with chestnut brown skin and a stark white prickly beard had been making keys for four decades. He popped the lock out of the front passenger side door and began meticulously filing each ridge of the key and testing it in the lock and filing some more. Like some god creating the perfect partner for my lock, he didn't stop til he got it just right. Then he made another one.

Our problems almost solved we drove back to town to put everything back together and only managed to lose four hours of the day.

Since then we've had no problems with the car (except when our car starts to overheat when we go too slow and/ or up hills) and everyone lived happily ever after.

The end (because this is too long and getting kind of boring).

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Freedom.

Sometimes you meet people who change you. Change the way you think about things, the way you see the world - in a literal sense at least.

Since I crossed the border from southern Laos into Cambodia a week ago I've been with a group of people who more-or-less shunned the day tours in favour of more travelling freedom in the form of motorbikes/ scooters.

In every town I've been to so far - Banlung, Kratie and Kampong Cham, I've been on the back of a motorbike exploring the surrounds a paid day-tour would not take me. Important to note though, I haven't been driving. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't know how - and I have skin missing from my big toe to remind me. (Story below).

Since I left New Zealand at the end of April, by default (because it seemed more convenient and a good way to meet people and because of the reason above), I had always booked day tours around each place I'd been to. And they are, by all means (mostly) worth the money in terms of hitting all the major tourist attractions in one go and for meeting other travellers. Day trips though and even treks, are highly regimented with a set schedule of where to be, what to do and even when to eat. Renting a motorbike or scooter for the day (which is cheaper than a day trip and more fun) never crossed my mind.


For more intrepid and able travellers, the motorbike is the ultimate way to get around (except maybe in the larger cities where the traffic is heavy and hectic) and see parts of the country that not many other tourists may go - and where no minivans or buses could go either. There is a great sense of flexibility and adventure when you're on a motorbike - sure, you may not see all the things you would on a day trip, you may very well get lost, run out of petrol or injure yourself, but that doesn't matter. Its just more fun. 


The freedom to go and stop where you want, do what you want and see what life is really like for the locals is worth so much more than the $5 it costs to rent for the day. And from stories I've heard, even if you do damage to the bikes (which are mostly owned by locals so you're actually riding their bikes) doesn't cost that much. 

Six of us left Kampong Cham, Cambodia's third biggest city, on four motorbikes and planned to travel along both sides of the Mekong and taking a car ferry across the river. We left late morning (because we could) and took the road to Stung Trong and across on the the ferry. The road there was pretty good - a mix between sealed and dirt roads, but all sans potholes. The other side of the river was a different story. All dirt with massive holes in the middle of the road which resembled a dirt bike track rather than a main thoroughfare through several villages.

The places we passed through, including a few Muslim villages were full of smiling children greeting us in their cute and high-pitched voices ("Hello! Hello! Hello!") followed by a wave as we sped past. They weren't the only ones though - all the villagers, old, young, big, small, greeted us or acknowledged our us with a nod of the head (and helped us out when we thought we were lost). Some seemed truly bewildered to see a small motorcycle gang briefly interrupt their daily life.

But alas, I feel this may be the end of this brief fling with freedom. Our group is going its separate ways and, despite my best efforts, I do not think I'll be riding a motorbike or scooter anytime soon.

(I now have a bandage wrapped around my big toe after trying to ride a motorbike (sorry mum). It was nothing serious, but I lost control of it because I was heavy-handed with the accelerator and ended up driving into the kerb where the bike fell onto the ground. I was wearing jandals and scraped a few layers of skin off my big toe. The bike was unscratched.)

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There and back again.

This has nothing to do with The Hobbit. I just merely stole the title. 

This is about the sometimes (read mostly) unglamorous transport options and tours which get me to the beautiful places that I take photos of and subsequently write about.

In Laos, most of the overland transport is limited to buses, minivans, motorbikes, bicycles and boats (if you're lucky enough to be near a river). 


Most of the buses and minivans (except for the local transport) are actually quite nice - clean, with air con and big windows - but what gives the simple cross-country, 3-10 hour trip, that sense of dread are the roads. Not all are made equal in Laos. One moment the road is sealed, the next gravel, the next dirt with large potholes. Others wind their way high into the mountains and back down again.  


Case in point - the four hour minivan from the backpacker tubing haven of Vang Vieng to the Laos capital of Vientiane. Our four-wheeled chariot was in fine condition, though I had one of the unenviable chairs which fold out into the aisle. Everyone I spoke to who had done the trip already had complained that it was one of the worst rides they'd experienced. But most of them seemed like a bunch of complainers. I, however, like to put a positive spin on things (where possible). Most of the three or so hours seemed like some lame rollercoaster or carnival ride ("Just pretend like its a ride at Laos Disneyland," I thought to myself).
     
Quite possibly the most terrifying trip so far though was the 8 hour bus ride from Phonsavan (home of the plain of jars) to Vang Vieng. I decided, in all my infinite wisdom, to take a local bus which left at 4.30pm and was told would arrive about 11.30pm ("no problem because everything will still be open in Vang Vieng", I was told by the guy at my guesthouse). I could have/ possibly should have left on a tourist bus first thing the next morning and arrived about 3 or 4pm (hindsight is great). I guess I just wanted to get out of Phonsavan.

I got on the bus hoping to see at least one more traveller, but no luck. I was fortunate enough to experience this one on my own. The bus itself had seen better days (I suppose they save the good stuff for the tourists). The seats were a bit worn and colour faded. The seat backs were loose and the elastic at the back of the seat in front of you where you put your things had come apart. The air conditioning was barely working. It also seemed like it was oversold. At least three people were sitting in the aisle on plastic stools and fold out chairs. Luckily that wasn't me.

That wasn't what I was terrified about though. I think it was a combination of being the only foreigner on the bus, the prospect of arriving at my destination in the middle of the night (actually arrived about 12.30am), paranoia about missing my stop (I was the only one getting off at Vang Vieng) and also trying to stay awake until we arrived in Vang Vieng (I never actually knew what time we were meant to arrive so I tried to be alert the whole time).

Our two day slow boat from Thailand into Laos seems like luxury compared to the land transport. The first day anyway. As the crowded boat filled with tourists and some locals meandered along the Mekong River we wiled away the day sat in what were probably the back seats stripped from. Set up in rows like on a bus or plane, passengers dump their weary bodies into any seat they can get, only to find none of them are bolted to the wooden floor boards and their weight pushes the seat into the people behind them. During all of the first day the wind keeps weary travellers cool and refreshed, but on the second, we find ourselves sat behind the engine in a closed in room with two windows and about 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the boat. Not ideal for a 9 hour trip, but it builds character, right?

The best time though, was zipping around Phonsavan to the plain of jars on the back of a motorbike. I'd arrived there on my own and found few other travellers (its not really a big hit with tourists, it seems). A package tour of a couple of the sites and other attractions in the area would have cost far too much to do on my own (about 4-500,000 kip or $67-83NZD) or even if I found another person to go with (about 300,000 kip or $50NZD). I was contemplating scrapping it all together and leaving for Vang Vieng and was generally in a bad mood for having possibly made a mistake in going to Phonsavan in the first place. Until I visited the UXO (unexploded ordnance) Survivors Information Center. (Around the time of the Vietnam War, American forces dropped millions of bombs over Laos in what is known as the Secret War. It was thought the Viet Cong were using paths through Laos to get in and our of the country. Millions of those dropped bombs failed to explode and so now the country is littered with explosives which still kill about 100 people a year and injure many more.)

When all hope was lost of finding a tour, one of the volunteers at the centre, Kham, had offered to take me on a tour for less than half of the cheapest tour price I was quoted. The money too would go back to the centre. He would pick me up at 8am the next morning.

The people at my guesthouse, who had quoted me those initially high prices, were so passive aggressive and trying to dissuade me from going with Kham. Apparently, according to them we'd get pulled over by the police and possibly fined because he was not a recognised tour guide. The reason their tour was so expensive was because they needed to pay fees to be able to do the tours etc etc. It worked for a little bit - sowed the seed of doubt - but everything turned out fine. People make their own way to the jar sites all the time with no problems.

Arriving on his red motorbike which he had had for about 10 years ("Its a bit slow, but the first bike I've owned."), Kham, a university student in his second year of an economics degree, tells me mystery surrounds the large carved stone jars which are about 2500 years old. Some say they were used to hold whisky and food, others think they were used as family urns and the sites are a cemetery.

We also go to the old town which was bombed by the Americans and forcing most of the town to flee to other parts of Laos. We pass an old French hospital destroyed by American bombs and what were essentially a vault for the towns valuables - gold, silver etc - called Stupa which were first raided and razed by the Thai people then further damaged by American bombs.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this anymore, but I guess the moral of the story is things will always work out in the end and don't complain about long haul transportation?


I'll let you decide.          

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