Page 42 of The Big Race
"Looks like we're all together for this one," Ray observed as we found two seats across the aisle from each other. The bus was old but functional, with vinyl seats that had seen better days and windows that didn't quite close properly.
A woman got on carrying a cage full of chickens, which she somehow managed to wedge into the overhead rack. The birds clucked nervously, and a few feathers drifted down onto my shoulder. Ray brushed them away with a gentleness that surprised me.
"At least we're all in the same boat," I said, nodding toward the other teams. "Nobody has an advantage anymore."
The bus jerked into motion, and I grabbed the seat in front of me to keep from sliding into the elderly woman beside me. The air conditioning was blasting directly overhead, so cold it made my teeth hurt, but sweat still trickled down my back from the humidity outside.
"This is going to be a long ride," Fletcher muttered from the front, loud enough for everyone to hear. Adrienne shot him a look that could have frozen the Mekong River.
Behind us, I heard Maddox groan. "How many more stops do you think there are?"
"According to this," Zara consulted her phone, "about fifteen. Maybe twenty."
Alex turned around in his seat. "Twenty stops? We'll never get to Ban Pong at this rate."
"That's the point," Ray said. "Everyone's on the same timeline now. It comes down to who can navigate the town fastest once we get there."
The bus wheezed to another stop, and an elderly monk in orange robes got on, followed by a teenage boy carrying a huge bundle of sugar cane. They worked their way down the aisle, the monk settling into a seat near Adrienne and Fletcher while the boy continued toward the back.
"You'd think they'd give us more to go on," Adrienne said, consulting their clue card again. "I mean, how many bronze Buddha shops can there be in one town?"
"According to my research, about fifty," Alex called out, earning groans from multiple teams.
The bus swerved around a motorbike, and everyone grabbed their seats. In the back, Maddox looked increasingly pale.
"You okay back there?" I called out.
"Motion sickness, again," Zara explained.
"There's some ginger candy in my pack," I offered. "Might help."
Ray looked at me questioningly - we were, after all, competing against these people. But something about the confined space and shared misery of the journey made the usual competitive barriers feel less important.
"Thanks," Zara said gratefully, accepting the candy. "That's really sweet of you."
Fletcher turned around, skeptical. "Aren't we supposed to be racing against each other?"
"We are," Ray said. "But we're not animals."
The comment hung in the air for a moment before Adrienne smiled. "Good point."
As the bus continued its stop-and-start journey through the Laotian countryside, the artificial boundaries between teams began to soften slightly. We weren't friends exactly, but we were fellow travelers enduring the same uncomfortable experience.
"Anyone know what we're supposed to do once we find this Buddha shop?" Ross asked during one of the longer stops.
"The clue just says 'find the shop where Buddha's peaceful smile guides travelers on their journey,'" I read from our card. "Pretty vague."
The bus lurched to another stop, and we all swayed together like some odd human pendulum. Despite the discomfort, I found myself almost enjoying the forced downtime. After weeks of constant rushing, there was something oddly peaceful about being stuck on a slow bus with nowhere to go but forward.
"This beats racing through airports," I said to Ray.
He smiled. "Everything's an adventure when you're not in control of the timeline."
“Great.” I slumped lower in my seat. The air conditioning was giving me a headache, but when I tried to adjust the vent, it wouldn’t budge.
Ray reached up and tried too, his bicep flexing as he wrestled with the stuck vent. “Sorry, babe. It’s not happening.”
A woman a few seats ahead turned around and smiled at us. “First time in Laos?” she asked in accented English.
It took me a moment to recall that was what the natives called their country. We nodded.
“Bus always like this,” she said. “Very cold or very hot. Nothing in between.”
Like our marriage, I thought but didn’t say. We’d never been good at finding the middle ground between Ray’s all-or-nothing athleticism and my careful planning.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Remember our first hike in Colorado? When you wouldn’t tell me you were getting altitude sickness because you didn’t want to look weak?”
“And you knew anyway, and suggested we take a break by that amazing viewpoint.”
“Which turned out to be the perfect place for kissing.”
I smiled at the memory. “You always did know how to make the best of a bad situation.”
“Still do.” He gestured at our surroundings – the chickens overhead, the monk chanting quietly across the aisle, the sugar cane leaves trailing down the center of the bus. “This isn’t exactly a luxury travel experience.”
“No,” I agreed. “But somehow I’m having more fun than I ever did watching the show from my couch.”
As Ban Pong finally came into view through the grimy windows, all four teams began gathering their belongings and eyeing each other with renewed competitive awareness. The temporary camaraderie of the bus ride was about to give way to the reality of the race.
But for a few hours, we'd just been eight people on a crowded bus, (along with our camera operators, of course) helping each other through motion sickness and sharing observations about mysterious clues. It wasn't much, but it felt like progress of a different kind.