Originally uploaded by ladyhedda.

We're heading East to Sam Nuea.... No more boat travel for a while - just the good old sawngthaews, and buses where we can find them....
The first section of the trip took us a couple of hours by sawngthaew. It was pretty uneventful - we left Nong Kiaw at 11ish and arrived in Vieng Kam in time for lunch.
The next aim was to make it to Vieng Thong - for dinner. We asked around town about busses - no luck. There is a night bus that passes through between 11pm & 1am everyday, but we had decided we wanted to travel by day and see the scenery.
A couple of local Lao kids with a truck offered to take us to Vieng Thong, for a fee. We settled on $7 each, and finally set off at 3.30pm (after doing a couple of trips around town looking for extra passengers.)
The dude was driving so fast around corners on switchbacks I closed my eyes and held on. After only a hour or so we heard a clonk and pulled over to the side of the road. Flat tyre. After grabbing some wood to help jack up the truck they changed the tyre and bearings in 15 minutes. Unfortunately the spare was flat too!! So we all sat in the rear corner of the truck and trundled into the next village where we borrowed another tyre.
2 tyre changes, 1 bearing change all in 40 minutes.
The remainder of the ride was uneventful. Just cold. It was dark, and windy. I pulled just about every layer of clothing available out of my backpack. Toby (our fellow traveler) was stuffing plastic bags inside his fleece jacket to keep the wind out.
We pulled into town after 8pm. Freezing cold and miserable, but still laughing!