Water Way to Go

In Vientiane for an overnight stop, we went out for a meal in a posh French restaurant to celebrate the birthday of Debs (Our Glorious Leader). The bill came to a mere 2.4 million kip. Imagine the service charge.

Off to the depths of the jungle the next day, a place called Hinboun. The bus journey would be long and possibly a bit twisty at the end which meant the Australian bloke decided he wouldn't join us again and would fly to the south to meet us there. Unfortunately this meant we were left with Madam, who now took to rising early and placing her personal belongings on the front seat of her bus, next to the driver, before breakfast every morning just in case any upstarts got ideas above their station.

One hour out of Vientiane and the Misery Bus broke down. We sat in a pleasant roadside café reading and playing scrabble. I was hustled by a scrabble pro who knew far too many two letter words and later confessed to playing online every day. Apparently her own family will no longer play with her. I can understand why.

Arrived in Hinboun at dusk, we're beginning to tire of these long days, up at 6.30 a.m., leaving at 8 a.m. spending most of the day in the bus, we're running out of conversation, although we've started playing games, there's a limit to how long I can put up with people beating me. Brian shows a penchant for any game involving 'guess the historical figure', whereas I prefer to concentrate on anything involving the contents of Heat magazine.

Hinboun is a glorious place, deep in the jungle. We are staying in log cabins overlooking the Mekong. Brian has a close encounter with an army of ants who have the temerity to suddenly emerge from behind the toilet cistern as he is taking his evening shower. The first I know of it are his squeals and I open the bathroom door to find him dancing around the floor, naked except for his ant attack 'weapon' - the shower head, which he is pointing in the ants' direction. Where once they were marching towards him, they are now doing the breaststroke around his feet. He implores me to get help. I struggle not to laugh.

A man duly arrives with a can of insecticide and turns our bathroom into a toxic steam capsule while Brian huddles in the corner protecting his modesty with a hand towel. Bri spends the remainder of the evening regaling the rest of the group with tales of his heroic rescue from deadly ants that were 'at least 10 inches long and had fangs of steel'.

The next day we set off in boats to go through an underground tunnel that cuts straight through a mountain. Over 7km long we need our torches and can take nothing that might get wet as we have to climb in and out of the longtail boars and scrabble over rocks and through mud and water whenever we hit rapids. My beloved wind up handy torch proves woefully inadequate - it can just about illuminate the area around my feet. Meanwhile the bright pink rechargeable torch that Brian bought at the local market yesterday for 50p sends out radiant shafts of light that cut through the gloom and could double as the Blackpool Illuminations in a powercut. I stick close to him with my pitiful little 2 watt bulb.

On the return journey, sharing our boat with Diane, a very funny American for whom we mostly have to translate English words into americanese (she has particular trouble with the phrase 'taking the piss' assuming it is meant literally), our boat runs aground and the three of us have to get out in the middle of the river, clinging desperately to each other, as the boatmen struggle to disengage our boat from the large rock on which we are stranded. We reassure ourselves that being marooned has more to do with the heaviness of our shoes than our over-consumption of stodgy egg and bread breakfasts for the past month.

The cave journey was a real highlight of the trip, as was swimming in the Mekong afterwards.The only downside is that tomorrow is another long bus journey day.