What's My Line?

The roads in Laos, for the most part, are pretty good. We know this because we've traveled from Northern Laos to the extreme south in a matter of 24 hours - it was a marathon. A 10 hour bus that left Pakse in the early morning and arrived in the nation's capital Vientienne near 8 pm. We then took a "sleeping bus" another 11 hours to Pakse near the southern border with Cambodia. It wasn't half bad, although a Laos sleeping birth will only fit a man from Laos. I basically slept sitting up.

The good thing about a sleeping bus is that you do not have to sit and dwell on your mortality and that of Laos pedestrians. You see - a major highway here is not much more than a two lane street in Canada with a few very important and specific variations. For example, many homes and businesses along the route are standing mere feet from the road. In front of these homes is where the vendors in small booths sell their wares, where the kids play and make there way home from school, where mothers feed their children and mechanics weld new leaf springs onto rickety tuk-tuks. Mix into this a wide (I mean wide) array of beasts; everything from dogs, ducks, chickens, pigs, lots of cows, and I did see one pet bear. On more than one occasion, while I was awake anyway, we swerved for ducks and slammed our brakes for cattle.

The art of not killing domesticated animals is one thing. There is a whole other level for pedestrian and road traffic that's taken me some time to figure out. You should know that the "rules" are posted nowhere, that signs are almost irrelevant (our bus stopped at all of one traffic light, as this was likely a novelty - it was the only one I have seen up until that point). The best I can figure is that it goes something like this:

1. Bigger vehicles have more rights and are likely to be driving towards the center of the road, especially at high speeds - yes, on the line.
2. Mopeds and other two wheeled vehicles are to ride towards the outside of the road. Give a little double honk to remind them if they forget.
3. If you see a break in traffic before you need to make your left hand turn you should take advantage of it and ride on the opposite side of the road into oncoming traffic and make your left hand turn from the wrong side of the road.
4. Passing anywhere is "A" Ok! Oncoming traffic isn't even a problem provided you give them enough time to move over. Remember Rule #1 - that bigger has more rights.
5. Go with the flow. If there isn't space to turn or too much traffic - simply nudge your way out into the lane until someone stops.
6. Pedestrians can walk into busy traffic - be sure to give lots of notice and walk slowly so that the traffic can move around you.

I'm sure that this type of informal system moves massive amounts of traffic with very little infrastructure here in Laos. It's like the whole country is one big traffic circle. In fact, we've only seen one cow killed just today. Oh yeah, and one man unconscious and bleeding - not bad.

In my humble opinion they could save even more tax dollars if they simply stopped painting lines on the roads - whose line is it anyway!?

Greg