Sawadee Kaa!

Back in Thailand at Chiang Mai - we decided to pay the money rather then spend 2 days on a boat then a 7 hour bus trip to get here!

We left Vang Vieng on Friday but had a great time there! Tubing has definitely been the most fun I've had all trip and all the reccomendations we had to try it were right!

It's definitely not so much about the tubing but more about the bars ... you rent a tractor inner tube in town and a tuk tuk takes you up the river. Sort of like Calypso Beach at Wet N Wild but with bars, flying floxes and giant slides - an awesome way to spend the day!

The scenery is beautiful, the water flowing fairly fast and cool and refreshing - but no sooner are you in the river before you're being offered a long bamboo stick to grab hold of and you're being pulled in by it to your first bar :-D

At first I was a little trepidatious walking into the crowded out door bar with just a little black string bikini on but after my first bucket my fears were put at ease! And at 30,000 kip ($6) for a whisky lau (a very hearty pour - probably 300 ml!), M150 (red bull concentrate shot) and 7 up - who wouldn't be relaxed?

We got chatting at the first bar to Benjamin, a 24yo from Santiago Chilli who was travelling alone and we ended up spending the remainder of the day sharing our dry bag (hmm which didn't stay so dry) and hanging out with him.

After making most of my way through my bucket we hopped back in our tubes and headed 100m downstream to the next bar - I decided just to have a coke this time as wanted to actually see the day out but free Lau Lau shots (whisky lau or tiger whisky) are given out at every bar and of course who am I to say no?!

We laid in the sun here while the boys had another beer, got chatting to the group of Belgium girls sitting next to us - and Benjamin and I had a go on our first flying fox - not too high wasn't too hard to swim back to the bar despite the current and Brendan was too scared of heights to try it, so enjoyed the opportunity to show up a boy :-D

Time for the next bar!

Back in our tubes - quite happy by this stage. Another softdrink - oh and of course a Lau Lau shot. Another go on a flying fox higher then the last - attempted a back flip but only got a slightly stinging back flop. Run into some Swedish boys we'd befriended in Vientiane chat with them, then back in our tubes and onto the next bar!

The boys decided it was time to share buckets, more Lau Lau shots. We found a volley ball net with 2 mud ponds on each side with some very muddy people playing so decided to join them!

What a scream! It was extremely difficult to stand up as so slippery so here we all were covered in mud (yes in bikinis), some german girl slipped over taking me in (yes 2 girls rolling round covered in mud in bikinis!), and occassionally someone actually got the volley ball over the net.

After a short while we gave up and just threw mud at each other instead!

By this stage we're chatting to everyone, making friends with people from all over the world - Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerlan, Iceland, Canada, South America - it was soooo much fun!

We hop into our tubes and down river arrive at one of the main bars with the giant slide, and highest flying fox - more buckets, more lau lau shots, more mud fights, dancing in the mud to tunes like "Prodigy Smack My b**** Up", rides down the slides to wash off - all good until I decided to try this flying fox ... Benjamin let me go first and told him I'd just drop in this time - no backflips as we'd heard someone had broken their arm half hour earlier - also start at maybe 20m above the river so wanted to be careful but didn't quite come off how I expected.

Now I like Benjamins version the best as he tells me it's the best jump he'd seen all day and describes it as a triple sommersault :-D

Brendan on the other hand said that did not look good and looked more like I swung off with one hand, cartwheeled through the air and crashed into the water ...

Either way I came up winded, gasping for breath with only half my bikini top on! Fortunately the locals throw a little tube on a rope out to bring you in, and I got back to shore where it took me about 10 minutes to get my breath again and back to partying I went!

So glad I did as next bar was dancing around the bonfire - what fun day!

Next few days were not so fun as I recovered though :-(

Friday we caught the bus to Luang Prabang - it took 7 hours due to the dodgy roads in Laos but passed through some beautiful scenery and saw some interesting daily life of those living in the villages we passed through.

Luang Prabang is Laos' 2nd biggest city but still only very tiny and once again French inspired. The markets were fantastic as no one was harrassing us!

Mostly kayaking and hiking to be done but thought I'd save that for Chiang Mai so we flew out yesterday (Sunday).

All was on the mend and going well until I reefed my 17kg backpack out of the tuk tuk but the strap had gotten stuck - so now have damaged my shoulder to the point that yesterday by the time we landed in Chiang Mai I couldn't even carry my small back pack in either arm let alone my large one - so poor Brendan had to carry just over 40kg of both our big and small back packs to our guest house while I whimpered in pain feeling very sad and sorry for myself.

Took myself to the ChiangMai Ran Hospital Emergency room last nite (more like a medical cetnre) and now have some anti inflammatories tablets and cream but still in a lot of pain and unable to lift or move much - the doctor didn't speak much english and said no swimming for a week - Brendan said he thinks I've done my rotor cuff like he's done before and that I'll take quite a while to heal! So definitely no kayaking or trekking this trip :-(

Off next to find a good accupuncturist or at least a good massage! I'm in Asia surely there is some asian miracle worker around here somewhere?!