Crazy Tubing Adventure

Okay so we arrived in Vietiane around lunchtime, found somewhere to stay spoke to some people there who said there was not too much to do, had a look for ourselves and agreed so we booked a bus to Vang Vieng the next morning.

The bus ended up being a mini van which I thought was gonna be a great comfortable ride, but I was wrong, it was like getting beat up in a sauna. The road was so bumpy I kept getting bounced into the roof and the air con wasn't on and every time we hit a bump my window would close, not a very enjoyable trip at all an actual bus would have been much better. Anyway we got there found a guesthouse and after all the travel got an early night.

The next day was tubing day. We had heard alot about this, tubing down a river stopping off at bars with rope swings and such, but nothing could prepare us for it. You hire a tube pay a deposit which you get back if you drop it back before 6pm. No problem right? We then got in a tuk tuk and on the way there people told us tales of losing thongs, cameras money...etc... we thought we are not that stupid we will be alright...right?

We arrived at the drop off point to thumping tunes and free shots. All the bars are pretty close together so I will start with bar 1. We stayed there for quite a while as they had a massive rope swing and had a stunt comp on that day and good music. After a couple of beers and some more free shots of the local whisky we headed to bar 2. More free shots and a bucket or 2 were had there. They had a zip line that when you held on till the end it stopped abruptly and you got flung into a backflip whether you wanted to or not. Got some funny video's of that.

At the next bar there was a 10meter platform to jump off so after some more free shots and buckets and lots of jumping myself I finally got Jess to jump off it which was good for her as she has never jumped off anything that high before (and probably never will again).

The next bar had a mud pit so Simon and I thought we would wrestle around in that and some mud fights as you do. It all gets a bit hazy after that. I remember some mud volley ball at another bar and I remember Jess and I doing a rope swing together, but then suddenly it was dark and I was floating down a river by myself not knowing where I was so I was calling out for a while not sure if I had passed town and next thing I hear Jess reply but I couldn't see her. Suddenly a boat started up and headed over to me. I thought this was the best thing. I was being saved! I jumped in the boat and he took me to this tiny makeshift bar where Jess was sitting around a fire and had been for quite some time. We sat around talking to the local Laos guy and next thing he is bringing out a tarp and some pillows and a blanket and he set up a little camp for us on his jetty on the side of the river! So we decided to sleep there.

We woke up when it was still dark and contemplated heading down river in the tubes to home and we checked our "waterproof " bag and saw we had Simons keys and wallet..oops..then we looked in the bag further and what do we find our camera soaking wet and full of mud, no good, so we thought we should head back to find Simon, we will just grab our thongs, nope no thongs. Better check the wallet yep we lost 3000 baht about 100 bucks, the perfect trifecta. No point dwelling on these things more pressing matters how do we get home??? We thought we better wait for the sun to come up which thankfully happened sooner than we thought, as soon as it did we got a good look at where we were. It was absolutely stunning right on the river at some local Laos house in a little cove underneath these massive limestone cliffs I would post a photo if we had a camera ha ha .

Next thing this little old man is coming down to say hi. He says he has some medicine for us and proceeds to pour us, including himself, a shot of the local whisky which has dragonfly's and some other random things in it. It was like 6:30 am so we tried to decline but he persisted so we had one, so what did he do pour another of course! He then wandered around and found us some thongs which had been washed up odd ones of course but we are still wearing them now. He lit a fire for us then asked if we wanted coffee, at least thats what we thought, he didn't speak much english. Sure enough it was coffee but before he gives it to us, another shot, and then he pours a shot into our coffee!! We think he was trying to tell us he would take us home in his boat but we just wanted to float down the rivr as it was quite sunny now. He jumped in his bat and we thought he was coming to get us but he took off to the otherside of the river. Nows our chance so we jumped in our tubes and floated down the river. It was beautiful but a long way so lucky we waited to the sun came up. After a pleasant ride we made it home and found Simon who was freaking out he was about to call the police, fair enough it was 8am we were 14hours late!

So that was our tubing adventure lost a camera and some money but gained some unforgetable memories so all in all I think we are up cause you can't put a price on that!!!