Losing It!

  Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
April 11, 2009

We woke up on time to watch the end of the Harry Potter movie that we had started watching last night (sorry Annie, I don't know which one it was!).

We had breakfast on the riverfront. I had an omelette with tomato, onion and a couple of pieces of ham with a baguette and tea. Bill had scrambled eggs with green onion and juice. We both had some nice fresh fruit too.

We checked out of The Elephant Crossing and walked down the street and down the dirt road to the Guest House (we can not remember the name). The room had not been cleaned yet, but we were able to leave our bags there. On our way there we bought some flip flops so we do not ruin our sandals. I did some hardcore bargaining and secured 2 pair for 30,000 kip ($5).

We walked back to the main part of town. We both have flip flops in hand because they are already killing out feet! We stopped at the internet for a bit to check out rooms in Vientiane and I was able to hook up with Tina and the Elliotts on Facebook! It was so nice to hear from home! We also found out that we can kayak from Vang Vieng to Vientiane. That would be so much better than a bus or van ride.

Before we head to the river, Nam Song, we had something to eat at Restaurant Luang Prabang Bakery (not a typo, that is the name). Bill had pizza on french bread (the sauce was not the best and it had chicken, mushroom, cheese, tomato and baby corn (OK?). I had a salami and Brie sandwich with tomato and cucumber that was good. I also had a peach iced tea that was not sugar-free, but good. Bill had BeerLao. We checked out the bakery counter. They had lots of yummy baked goods, so I broke down and ordered a pieced of chocolate covered cake. It was soooo good. They even warmed it up!

We walked down the street and signed up for tubing at 60,000 kip/person. I was #70 (what a great year) and Bill was #71 because someone ducked in to grab #69. They wrote our numbers on our hands in permanent marker and we jumped in a tuk tuk with people from Ottawa, Germany and Holland.

It was a short ride to the beginning of the tubing. There were at least 4 bars on the waterfront at the start of the route. We did not realize that they had platforms and swings to jump into the river along the way. Bill was thrilled and took the opportunity to jump in at the first spot. You have to climb up wooden stairs to a wooden platform and a person pulls the handle in for you. You then have to step off the platform, holding the bar and swing into the water. Bill was wet before he even had his 1st beer!

Around noon we ordered 2 BeerLaos and then jumped into our tubes and set sail! I had my sunglasses on my head instead of my face and we had not gone very far before I lost them. Ah well, I bought them at the Calgary airport, so they had had a good long life.

A bit upstream we were convinced to stop at a bar. This one was owned by some guys from Holland. They offered a free shot of Lao Lao. Our choices were Lao Lao with centipedes, big bugs, chillies and bark. We chose the one with centipedes. I think it was watered down, because it was not very strong. We also had some chips and some tomato puff things that were not that great. I had finished one BeerLao and was feeling brave. The jump here is not very high, so I decided to do it. The guy who was in charge of the jump took a long time, so I was pretty nervous by the time he showed up. After some hesitation I did it! I told Bill to yell at me when I should jump, but he forgot and I jumped later than I should have, but it was OK. I did not touch bottom. I was still shaking 10 minutes later. I did better than my last jump into the water which was off the 5 m platform at the Calgary diving center.

We continued on before I realized that I had lost my earring out of my upper ear. I will have to replace that before it closes on me. It is funny that the tubing reminds me of Elora Gorge and that is where I had my ear pierced with Teen!

The trip down the river is very shallow in some spots (you have to keep your bum up) and very deep in other spots to allow us to jump in. The view is incredible with the limestone mountains beside us. The water temperature is good too. Good thing it is not cold because we are going to be in the water all afternoon.

Our second stop was just past a bridge where it was really shallow. We walked to one side of the river and sat in one of the "cabanas". I stayed put and Bill went to find a cold BeerLao and a fruit shake with Lao Lao. It took him a while to find a shake, he actually had to cross a bridge and buy one from the other side. The guy making the drink made more than would fill the glass, so he made Bill drink it while he was filling it up. At the third stop we purchased another BeerLao and did not jump because the 3 girls that were there said that they had touched bottom after their jump. I did get to have my picture taken with a WILD stray dog though (a tiny little adorable puppy).

On our way to the fourth stop I lost one of my flip flops; it did not float. We had a great time at the fourth stop. I was given a shake that was intended for someone else, so I ended having 2 shakes here and Bill had a BeerLao. The swing went out over the middle of the river, instead of going along the bank. Bill and I each jumped here 3 times. It was a lot of fun. I swallowed some river water twice, that could come back to haunt me... Bill wanted to stay and jump off the rest of they day. I was not afraid at all, maybe I am not afraid of heights anymore?! OK, maybe less afraid anyway. We started to see lots of kayaks returning for the day. Looks like fun, I am looking forward to paddling to Vientiane in a couple of days.

We were told it would take 15 min to get into town, so we shoved off. In reality it took over an hour to get back to town and we had to do some paddling to get there in the time we did. We saw and heard the storm rolling in, but did not make it back in time. We were almost in town when it started raining. By the time we were out of the water and walking past all of the deserted bars it started raining really hard. Good thing we had a towel, I wrapped it around myself to try to stay warm. It was almost 6 pm (the deadline) when we handed in our tube.

We headed back to the Guest House to dry off and change. I walked down the dirt road to our Guest House, Bill decided to take the mud stairs. He was 2/3 of the way down when he slipped and slid the rest of the way down. He cut up his ankle, the side of his knee, his side and his armpit on his right side. Ouch! Apparently I am to blame for his route selection because I was wearing his flip flips because I lost mine...

We showered and changed in the room and tried to wash Bill's white shirt - no luck. After we bandaged Bill up we discovered that we should have put the passports in the dry bag instead of a zip lock in Bill's money belt. Most of the stamps in our passports are smearing. Luckily you can still make out our Laos and China Visas. The books are really warped, it is much worse than when Bill ran his last one through the washing machine.

We had dinner at Sanasay and watched some Friends episodes. We had the BBQ chicken, pork with chilli and basil on rice, a banana split, water and BeerLao. The tab was 100,000, but they tried to add an extra 41,000 to it. They are very slow and very disorganized here, but the grilled chicken was really good.

We went back to the room and tried to sleep. The lack of a/c, lack of TV, a hard bed and pillows, the sunburns, the ants and bugs due to the open window without screens was not good and we did not sleep very well.

To recap, Losses for the day:
Theresa's sunglasses
Theresa's earring
1 of my brand new "happy" flip flops
Bill lost "it" while walking down the muddy steps