Three hours after we departed the popular tourist destination of Luang Prabang in the north of Laos, our bus broke down.
We were on our way to Vientiane and were supposed to arrive early the next morning.
It was at night and we were in wild mountainous country.
The road was completely dark.
On either side was a wall of dense and formidable jungle, a mad tangle of vines and trees and ferns silhouetted under star light. There was no moon.
Suddenly there was a piercing shrieking noise and the bus glided to the side of the road and came to an abrupt stop.
What happened afterwards remains engraved in my memory as a remarkable event but this is doubly so given my present circumstances of being confined to Australia – and wondering whether travel, as I once knew it and took for granted, will ever happen again.
Travel unplanned and full of surprises both enjoyable and far less so……