No matter where the station clerk says the bus is going you can rest assured that nearly every 3rd world bus is coming from the same place: hell. Weather it is the cramped seats, livestock sitting next to you, or the people pushing past to puke out your window it seems there are always a few reasons to find yourself uttering the phrase again.
Oh my god, this is the fucking bus from hell.
I had just crossed the border from Thailand into Laos. The capital city Vientienne had a few charms to offer, such as not being Thailand, but the city Luang Prabang had been calling too loudly for too long. It was only a matter of hours before I was on my second bus excursion of the day.
It was 20:00 O’clock when I boarded for the nine-hour ride. It took no student of shit situations to see at first glance that this, indeed, was the bus from hell. The seats looked to be inspired by Guantanamo stress positions and the motorcycle in the isles killed any fantasy of ever standing up again.
Thanks to the young body it was a few hours before the pain started. By the time any real agony of note had set in I had already accepted that my knees were going to ride in my nose for the duration. What I could not come to terms with though was the geometrically impossible angle my seat was positioned in. It was nothing short of a modern engineering marvel. Between chair, window, and angle there was no possible way to position my head in a manner that even approached ‘kind of uncomfortable.’ Miserable was the only option.
The X Y axis of evil fought its good fight with my comfort until the early hours of the morning. My pain was pushed further by the gong that clanged out over the PA some noise that was a bastard cousin of melody. The sound was a display of sleep canceling racket I dare any anthropologist to call music.
The bus sped through tight turns that were invisible in the black night. Occasionally a headlight would offer a hint of a rock like a girlfriend offers a hint of cheating. As in, a hint you would much rather do without. Periodic crashes announced potholes and hinted at the possibility that the bus ride had the potential to be the last. The only consolation was that the stench of BO was coming from my own armpits and not the man next to me.
The voice that came over the PA caught my attention for a number of reasons. First, it was no longer a banging gong, and second, it sounded kind of good. Despite the totally unfamiliar language the echo on the vocals was familiar. In fact, it was something I knew. When the horns dropped and the rhythm started my brain refused to believe my ears. I was bewildered that not only was the song not causing me physical pain but was borderline fantastic. I listened intently waiting to realize that I was wrong and it was awful but the moment never came.
I said sleep be damned and sat straight up to sort out the tune that was unfolding before my eardrums. The ChiKA ChiKA rhythm was right, it was just in the wrong place. The lead singer’s scratchy voice turned the unpronounceable refrain over again and again. The only word I could understand was when the word “reggae” was shouted like an explanation that my ears were not deceiving me. The guitarist then moved to beat the snot out of his instrument in a poor mans Jimi Hendrix impression that said this is the raw, real, home grown spiel. I swear you could hear that guitar scream rape.
What could this music be doing here? It was real reggae. The rhythm, drums, and guitars were better than a message and bed. I moved with every bit of the song and its time changes soaking up the audio therapy. For me, the bus no longer existed.

But just as quickly as it started it was over. The gong commenced and I remembered where the bus had just come from. The feeling was awful. I had been felt up and left cold. The bitch of a song told me she loved me then left me high and dry. It was heartbreak. I did not know if I should be grateful for the experience. Or was it worse to have the glimmer of hope only to be dumped back to the dregs of a window seat on the Shit Can Express.
At 6:00am I got off the bus with the rhythm still in my ears. Lush green hills rolled through fog, and orange glimpses of the morning sun echoed the saffron clad monks that went about their business. It was a scene as far away from the pit of the bus as one could hope.
Days later while walking through a market in Luang Prabang I could not believe my ears again. The song was spilling out of a tall single speaker that had a TV set on top of it. On the set was the Karaoke video that accompanied my song. The grainy video was that type of fantastic that only low budget can provide. A fifty something year-old Thai man with dreadlocks wailed out the song in a club filled with real people in the only conceivable setting for a reggae karaoke video.
I did not even bother to ask how much for the disc. In three months the bootleg CD was the only item I purchased without bartering.
With no CD player I relied on chance encounters to hear the track. Once aware of the song it was suddenly everywhere. Markets, sidewalks, even hip-hop remixes in Phnom Penh blared the musical work of genius and graceful timing. It even was the first song played at the American owned bar after Barack Obama was elected president.
Every person I talked to about the song seemed to have a few things in common. First and foremost was the universal appreciation of the track. Even the Beatles had detractors but somehow this Thai reggae jam was beyond that. The second thing they all had in common was their response to a question. It was the question that I hoped would unlock what had become my mystery for Laos. The question was an obvious one. Who is this group? Their answer sits under the song’s “Artist” category in my I tunes library: I Wish I Knew.

NOTE: This guy was trying to convince me it was a good idea to smuggle gems from India to the States. Really it was the kind of employment I have always wanted. You don’t actually do anything and you get a fat pile of coin. But then I remembered I am not an idiot. Regardless, it was about a week after I wrote this. He had the song on a memory stick that I put on my computer and that lead to an album name, that led to a youtube clip, and that answered everything.