Today we set off early to go into the hillside on an adventure Kayaking day. It was a beutiful day and not too hot (ideal conditions for a day on the river and rapids). We stopped along the way at a hillside village where we were shown around and told about their way of life. The kids of the village giggled and followed us the whole time (see photos). I had to stop Claire smuggling a couple into the back of the truck as we left. After 2 hours of rough road, where we picked up and dropped off a few local villagers who walk this distance nearly everyday to get essentials from the main town,we finally arrived at our drop off point where we unloaded the Kayaks and with an army of kids watching we (with our guide in a seperate Kayak) headed off down stream. The currents were pretty slow, even when we came to our first set of rapids, they were not big enough to warrant us wearing our lifejackets and helmets. so we meandered our way down the river taking in all the beuty this region of Laos had to offer. To say it was relaxing morning is probably an understatement, even with the rapids thrown in. Claire and I had a pretty good system worked out between us for tackling the rapids and we got to our lunch stop without even the slightest hint of a problem. (We are now Kayaking pros......or so we thought.) Dinner on the river bank was lovely as again we were surrounded by kids while we ate our Thai green curry and melon. There was an abundace of melon so we distributed it amongst the kids. As you will see on the pictures we also lent them our lifejackets and helmets. After lunch the guide prompted the kids to sing us a song, which they did really well, but were to embaraased to face us while singing so quite a few hid behind a tree during the rendition. Claire suddenly felt the need to give back to the community and got up and sang head, shoulders, knees and toes.........I don't think the kids knew where to look while she was bopping up and down (by herself) touching her head, shoulders, knees and toes. The end of the song however was meet by a big resounding round of......silence and strange looks. After a few more songs from the kids and our guide, we headed off down the river. This time we were fully kitted up (although I couldn't wear the helmet as I had picked up a small size and forget to try it on beforehand) as we were about to go over the big set of rapids. As you can see from the pictures Claire was looking particularly good. She was however pretty nervous as we approach the first stage of three of the big rapids. We closely followed the guide as we negotiated this first set (pretty well I might add) with Claire paddling like mad to keep the momentum going, while I steered us around the rocks. Once we completed the first stage we stopped paddling to congratulate each other. At this point the water was pretty calm, but I had failed to notice that we were drifting towards a large rock. When I saw it looming I was not overly concerned as we were only travelling at half a mile an hour, so I though I would stick out an oar and push us away from it before heading down the rest of the rapids. I had failed to notice however that claire was leaning the other way on the boat, so as I pushed I only succeeded in toppling us over. Again I was not too concerned as we were still in the relatively calm section of the rapids. We were both holding onto the upturned Kayak with the guide paddling along side Claire (who had swollowed a bit of water as we went over). Now to put you in the picture on what happened next I must point out that I was at one end of the kayak and claire and the guide were at the other. My end was the end that was nearest the next set of rapids, but the guide had told us to keep hold the Kayak at all times if we were to topple over, so I was holding on tight trying to make sure the boat didn't go ove the rapids. The guide, as I said was just by Claire in his boat, shouted for Claire to grab onto his boat (meaning with one arm and the other still holding to ours so he could paddle us to shore, but.....(in defence of Claire she was a bit paniky as she had just swollowed a mouthfull of water) Claie decided to just save herself (later she said she swore she heard me shouting save yourself) and she let go of our boat altogether and grabbed onto the guides boat with both hands, leaving me and the kayak to drift over the rest of the rapids. As I was told I held onto the kayak for dear life banging into rocks on my way down, thinking to myself what a lucky man I was to married to such a caring wife, when I realised that I had somehow got in front, with the kayak behind my head, and a big rock heading towards me. I decided it was time to forget holding onto the kayak and make a break for it. My feet (instead of my knees up until this point) found an underwater rock that I was able to push myself out of the way while the kayak crashed into the rock and I went over the last fall. Worried that the kayak may still be behind me, I looked back once I resurfaced to see the kayak had gotten stuck on the rock. Claire was dropped off at the shore and walked round to where I was and the guide paddled his way down to us. After an attempt to dislodge the kayak by throwing a massive piece of bamboo at it, it was decided that a rescue mission was in order. So with the guide we carried his kayak back up to the start of the rapids and one of us - me!! - braved the water again to ram the good kayak into the stuck kayak whilst paddling through the rapids. After the initial ramming the kayak had not budged meaning a desperate grab for the rope to drag it off the rocks. Luckily it all ended well with both kayaks, oars, dry bag and me making it to the shore. The only casualty was that our oar was slightly crooked but this was soon sorted by the guide. After the excitement of the afternoon we paddled the rest of the way down the river to meet the truck driver to take us back to Luang Prabang. Predictably there then followed the usual who was to blame discussion - Claire still maintains that I shouted "save yourself" but as heroic as that sounds I have no recollection of that.