Felt good. Thank god (which i did do), got into the pick up truck and headed off to the start point.
We would be in the truck with all our stuff for about an hour and a half, then we would kayak until about 1pm, have lunch then kayak for another hour and then the truck would pick us up and drive us to Vietaine, which would take about 2 hours.
“Has everyone done this before?”, I nodded. Why do I insist on lying when it's clearly not in my best interests? It's like at school when I was sat in Physics and my teacher would say “Do you understand?”, of course I didn't, it was physics, but I just smiled and nodded. Which is probably why I didn't do very well in my GCSEs. A smile and a nod can only get you so far.
Back to the travels; Matt and I got in one kayak and the rest paired up, Tammy and Nicky, Or and the Nanny, and team Holland. They were quite good about my mickey taking of the dutch, and at points Joey would peel off some of his burnt skin and say in his best Goldmember accent “That's a keeper”. Top lads. Toite lads.
“This was easy”, I thought, our kayak was steaming ahead of everyone else, we stopped for the first rapid so our instructor could repeat the instructions. I didn't like the way he said “when your boat turn over”, When? not 'if'? Anyway the tour operator said it was 'easy' rapids, and I'd kayaked on Bala lake before so there was no real danger.
As I surfaced spitting water out of my mouth, trying desperately to hold on to the boat and the paddle whilst trying to flip it back up, I thought 'easy rapids' my arse. We managed to clamber back on and paddle our way out of the whirlpool, I have no idea why but everyone seemed to find it very amusing.
Still it was only the first one, and a couple of other people had gone in as well, so I think this was probably the most difficult one. Matt advised me to keep paddling no matter what as it helped keep you balanced. OK, no problem. The second rapid approached.
well at least I'm getting good practice at getting out of the water. This was impossible! we got back on the boat again, but got caught in a currant and could only go back to the raid, magic, we managed it, but it sapped the energy out of my arms, not that there was much energy there after a Laos breakfast of fried bread and sticky rice. Matt changed with one of the instructors to have a go in a single kayak, which seemed a lot easier to maneuver. The third rapid approached and we cleared it no problem. Must have been Matt holding me back, that Duke of Edinburgh certificate means nothing on the mean rivers of Laos.
As we stopped for lunch, I asked Jesse if he could play “dueling Banjo's” on his guitar, he'd not seen Deliverance, neither had anyone else I think, so the joke went over everyone's head, which is what the water had been doing to me most of the morning.
After lunch I got in the single Kayak, far easier, I thought. However there were no more rapids to negotiate so I'll never really know.
We were sat in the back of the pick up for about 2 hours on the drive back to Vietaine. Matt, Jesse, Joey, Nicky and I would be crossing the boarder back to Thailand, Tammy, Or and the nanny would be leaving us. And such is life a travel group breaks up once again. we say our goodbyes, and they are gone. But as with everyone else I've met whilst being away, you don't lose a friend, you gain a facebook contact.
The boarder crossing went really smoothly, got a taxi from a guest house, crossed the boarder, no one tried to scam us, or sell us anything, just a couple of stamps and we were away. we got on a bus that took us across the friendship bridge, Laos and Thailand are separated by a river), and we got stamped into Thailand.
We went to the train station to try and buy the tickets for the over night train tomorrow but it was closed, we consulted the bible (lonely planet) about accomodation and found a nice cheap, clean place that was 180 bt for a twin room. So it was about £1.50 each.
we had dinner by the river front and spent most of the night watching a huge lizard trying to stalk a huge butterfly. (the butterfly got away in the end).
I felt like going out and having a proper night, but the day of kayaking, and an early start, coupled with the fact it was sunday and nothing was open, meant we were back in bed by 11pm. Tomorrow would see another day of traveling, and another train.
I'M ON A NIGHT TRAIN!
Jesse had managed to buy guitar strings before I got out of bed, so the band could live again. “Rob and the Musicians” were about to embark on the Thailand leg of their SE Asia tour, we'd already rocked Laos, and now it was time to play Bangkok.
We minced around town for a bit, the train wasn't until 1830 so we had loads of time to see the sights of Non Khai, there isn't much to see, but it was a nice quiet town, with very few western faces.
There was a sculpture park which was great, I was particularly impressed with the 20 foot tall 7 headed serpent. Beats the socks off the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (sorry Susan). It was an extra 10 baht for foreigners, I tried to argue that I was a local, but fell at the first hurdle when she started speaking to me in Thai. Nothing gets past these lot.
For some unknown reason when we were walking around the market later that afternoon, Joey decided to buy an electric keyboard. Well it was another piece to the band, the only problem was that he couldn't play it, I could barely sing so we were on a fairly even keel I thought. The market was nice, quite big and lots to see and buy, it was nice to haggle again after being in Laos, I was never sure if you were supposed to haggle in Laos, so I just avoided buying anything. That was the safest way of avoiding embarrassment and saving money.
We stocked up on crisps and drinks for the train journey. We were leaving at about 6.30pm, and would arrive in Bangkok at 6.30am, I was hoping that the train would be delayed so we'd get a bit of a lie in, knowing transport in this part of the world, it wasn't out of the question.
We all had second class sleeper bunks, which were nice enough, top bunks, with a fan. We broke out all our loose currency from Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and had a game of Poker, Nicky started winning, until I pulled it back, and was chip leader until we had to stop in case the police came on and stopped us. I didn't know Sting was so against poker. The guitar came out and we had a bit of a sing song, couldn't hear the guitar because the noise of the train, so that didn't last very long. I wandered into the buffet car for a drink or two with Jesse and Nicky (who had attracted the attention of a really drunk bloke from Nottingham, who was traveling with his beautiful Thai girlfriend). after Jesse and Nicky went to bed, I joined in the conversation with an American bloke called Nat, and a canadian called Brian. Brian had lived in Bangkok for the past 17 years or so, he was 53 with a 24 year old girlfriend, who he'd been with for 6 years. Not making any judgments, just throwing it out there. The conversation started to move onto sex tourism and I decided that it was probably time to call it a night. I climbed up to my bunk, pulled the curtain across and tried to sleep. The train was really bumpy, I was too concerned about falling out to sleep, that combined with my sunburn hurting every time I rolled over, meant that I probably got about 2 hours sleep. And the train was early getting into Bangkok. Typical.
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