Somboun Kaewchaiyajak, a journalist with the state news agency, says he feels like a "dead man born anew" after surviving the latest in a series of attacks against travelers.
Somboun told the Associated Press that gunmen shot at the bus he was on and set it on fire during a rest stop. Twelve people were killed and 31 injured in the Sunday attack, the second in three months.
Laotian authorities downplay fears that the attack was carried out by ethnic Hmong rebels. And the U.S Embassy in Vientiane, who had earlier warned Americans against travelling in that area, says the attacks are confined in their scope.