What a fantastic day. Had breakfast, and headed down to the tubing place at about 1pm, to pick up the rubber rings and get the tuk tuk up to the top of the river. The river runs for about 2km, and at certain times of the year it takes up to and hour and a half to tube down to the end, there about 6 or 7 bars that throw you rings, or stick out long poles for you to grab and they pull you in. we hit the first bar after being in the water for about 25 seconds, wasn't really worth getting wet for.
The bars are great, most have got really big rope swings over the river, I saw quite a few people let go way before they should have done and smack face first into the water, which was greeted with sounds of “oooohh!!” from the assembled onlookers at the bar. At the time we started i was number 177, I think they get upwards of 700 people per day going down the river. It was a bit manic.
had my first beer in about 5 days, felt really good, but wasn't going to over do it. Matt and I had a couple of goes on the swing, I perfectly executed a “landing on my head” maneuver (of which there is a video), and Matt performed possibly the best bombs I had ever seen.
We floated down to a couple of more bars, ended up on a small veranda type wooden shed just relaxing. The bar was playing the Arctic Monkeys, and all the other places were playing some really bad dance mixes of really bad songs, so we decided to stay there for a while. we were joined by what was to become my next traveling group. An American girl called Tammy, 2 dutch lads Jesse and Joey, and an Israeli guy called Or. All really sound people, and not the typical Vang Vieng crowd, so that was fine. everyone was quite drunk, and we were all getting along really well, then the bar starts to play Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Jesse pipes up “I love this song, I can play it on my guitar”. I fire a look at him, “Do you have your guitar with you?” I ask. “Yes”, he says, “it's back in my room”. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a band. buoyed by the excitement of this new musical union we head down to the “Mud Bar”.
I'm not sure if this was it's proper name, but it seemed to fit as everyone gets covered in this clay mud that they bring out in wheel barrows. when people get out of the water there is a small army of people wait to smeer big handfuls of the stuff over you. It is, in essence, an excuse for boys to feel up girls, and to a lesser extent vice versa. There was a volley ball court and a small football pitch, I was too busy being drunk and dancing to play football, so I just clowned around with the rest of the revellers, everyone was having a great time.
I spotted Tammy in the group of dancers (it wasn't hard, she's covered in piercings and tatoos, and has dreadlocks. “My friend Or is in a bit of trouble” she said. Instant sobriety ensued. Or was sat on a bench, practically unconscious, he would later claim that he had taken a drink from someone and it might have been spiked, a scary thought, but as Matt said later, “it's always you're 8th or 9th drink that gets spiked isn't it?”. anyway the travelers spirit kicked in, and although we'd only known Or for about 30 minutes evryone banded together to help him out. we took turns sitting with him, trying to get him to drink some water, and trying to get him to come around. Time was dragging on, and the tubes had to be back at the place by 6 or you get fined, it was about 5.30 and we'd spent about 20 minutes on the river, there was no way we'd be back in time. Me and Matt carried Or to a place where you can get a boat across the river, and up onto a bank that led to a car park, from there you could get a tuk tuk back into town. If this wasn't there I don't know what we would have done, there was no way he could tube back. Tammy and Jesse went with Or back to the guest house, leaving Matt, Nicky, Joey and me to tube back. we would have to return the other 3 people's tubes as well or they would be fined $7. It took about 45 minutes to float back.
as the river winds towards the end, you turn a corner and behind you there is the huge mountain that was always to your right hand side, but now it towered over you, and is really impressive. As the river runs at different speeds you tend to spend a lot of time on your own during that stretch, unless of course you hold onto each other's rafts. So as I floated backwards on my own looking up at the landscape, I started to wonder how on earth I got here. This is so far away from my life back home, and if recent events hadn't of panned out the way they had, then I don't know if I would have done this. I guess in a strange kind of way I owe someone a thank you.
We arrived back at the tube collection place just as it was getting dark, lost 20,000 from our 100,000 kip deposit (under £2), so no great shakes. And arranged to meet up with the dutchies and Tammy later (I didn't think Or would be making it out tonight).
We went out, had a few drinks, and a good time. It felt like ages since I'd been part of a group, and it was nice to get back to that. We broke out the guitars, and quickly discovered that possibly the only song we all knew was Don't Look Back in Anger, but we attempted others with varying degrees of success.
As we walked between bars I bumped in to a lad I'd met in Bangkok, Joe and his girlfriend Marney. He had played pool with us for a few hours and then had a barney with his girlfriend, and left. Strange night, but they were supposed to fly to australia the next day, they had got to the airport and realised that they wanted to spend more time in Asia and stayed. so bumping into them both was a bit unexpected. so they joined the merry band and we went to the only open bar, the Cue Bar, to play some more tunes and drink some more beer Lao.
A grand day out.
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