On the journey to Vientiane I went to sleep many times. I would wake up quickly, and knew that I was aware, but I didn’t know where I was. Suddenly I opened my eyes. Strangely, everything that I saw was changed. “That’s not my house any more,” I thought while I was sitting next to my mother and my dad. I turned around and looked at other people. I found that some were asleep, some woke up, and some ate something. Beautifully, the sun had risen from the bottom of the mountain outside the bus. My other sisters woke up and glanced past the bus window to observe where we were. The bus ran faster and faster.

Later, the bus stopped and we sat for about one hour. Then my eye was wondering again. In front of the bus window, I looked outside and saw many people walking around. It looked so crowded. Many cars ran along the street, and there were many tall white, yellow, and green buildings along the two sides of the street. “What are these?” I immediately asked my mother, who was sitting next to me. “Those are houses with many floors” she answered. “Do you think they might be broken because they are too tall?” I asked her. “No, they are too strong” she answered me with a little smile. I turned around to my sisters and discussed about what we saw. But I was not interested in talking to other people, no matter how they looked at us.

I was so excited because that was the first time that I had seen the capital of Vientiane. The bus stopped at the Morning Market (Talat Sao) bus station, my parents caught my hands and my sisters out of the bus and took the Tuk Tuk, which looks like a small car but has three wheels. We have many of them in Laos.

It took about 30 minutes to get to my cousin’s house. Then I saw a woman about forty years old with curly hair smile at us in friendly manner. She was standing together with her children. She was my cousin. So, we stopped at the gate of the house, which was made of wood. Later, my cousin invited us inside the house. We lived at her house before we could one of our own. I couldn’t sleep for three days because it was noisy, crowded, and it was a new environment for me, which was why I had many problems.

To be continued…

Posted by sphoudavong General