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What an amazing day today was!!! Tubing in Laos may be dangerous if you let it be but we had the best afternoon ever. We started today with a long lie and didn't get up until 10am, therefore had missed breakfast at the hotel. Nikki had arranged to go kayaking in the morning with Tom so it was just Lauren and I that went out for breakfast and went shopping.
Vang Vieng is in the middle of nowhere with no tarred roads leading to it but it's such a busy wee town. Obviously it's world famous for tubing but it's also famous for its 'Friends' bar. Basically these bars play Friends or Family Guy 24 hours a day and you lie down on thin mattresses/pillows and make yourself at home like what you would do in your living room. There were loads of these bars all over town and they were always busy, so we went to one for our breakfast. We both had a big breakie to line our stomachs for the afternoon :) We had arranged to meet Stu and Abi back at the hotel at 12.30pm so we didn't have a lot of time to go shopping. We needed to get the famous 'Vang Vieng Tubing Tops', waterproof pouches for our money and shorts, because the only shorts I had with me were denim and they were going to be no use in the river. I loved my outfit... Bright pink tubing vest top, navy tubing shorts that had a purple trim, purple 'ray ban' sunglasses to match my shorts and a purple waterproof pouch!!!! I still didn't really know what to expect but we were all super excited.
It turned out to be 6 of us that met at the hotel... Lauren, Nikki, Stu, Abi, Tom and me, and it was a brilliant group. Everyone was really sensible and we arranged to all stick together. I took my camera since it was waterproof and took a million photos all afternoon. We walked down to the centre of town where we got our tubes and signed our life's away basically. It was £9 to hire the tube and that included a £4.50 deposit which you got back if you returned your tube by 6pm! Adam had given me a safety email and explained the main do's and dont's, and the big one was to get off the river before sunset so our aim was to be back before it got dark and so we could get our deposit back. The company then wrote a number on our hand that corresponded with your contract disclaimer sheet we all signed before piling us into tuk tuks with tubes strapped to the roof. To be honest the scariest part of the day was this tuk tuk ride to the start of the course :) We found out in the evening that Eddie, Adrian and Kjetil weren't so lucky in their tuk tuk, as one out of the three wheels came flying off and they crashed on their way to the start.
When we eventually arrived at the starting point which was 3km up stream from the town, you could tell straight away it was going to be so much fun. We crossed a very dodgy wooden bridge to the starting bar and looking down the river you could just see loads of bars with music pumping from them all. It was something else... If you put Magaluf and Ibiza together, add alcohol, a river and tubes = carnage!!! We had to be careful what you ordered as anything on the menu with the word 'Happy' or 'Smiles' meant it contained amphetamines, you even got Happy Pizzas as well as Happy cocktails. I stuck to Smirnoff vodka and sprite, but before we were allowed to enter each bar we had to do whisky shots and every shot then gave you a bracelet that were tied to your wrist and by the end of the day made a nice wee collection.
It was 32 degrees and it was roasting, we were all sunbathing in the first bar watching the beer pong competitions and the crazy entertainment they put on. It was the owner of the bars birthday, or so they said... but everyone in the bar did a BeerLao shot! Basically you opened the can with a key at the bottom of the can and when you then opened it normally the beer came shooting out the bottom... it was crazy but ace fun. Some guys drew on all of our arms with promotions for their bars, it wasn't long before my arms were covered in permanent pen writing. We had a few drinks here before getting in our tubes for the first time :) and floating down to the next bar. The current was quite strong and every bar had guys throwing ropes with bottles on the end trying to pull you into their bars. We all agreed to go down to Star Bar which was the next one along! Again it was more whisky shots on arrival but this one was the best fun ever.
Two of the girls that worked there made us all go up on stage and taught us two dances, it was crazy!!! Everyone that was drinking down by the river were all taking photos and videos of us, it was hilarious. We danced loads at this bar, the six of us were together the whole time which was ace. The only two people on the tour that decided not to go tubing went kayaking for the whole day instead and we spotted them go past, so we were all waving like idiots to get their attention, I think James was well jealous when he saw us and annoyed that Liz wouldn't go tubing. Them someone spotted Eddie, Adrian and Kjetil go past on their tubes, they were the boys that our tour leader thought would go crazy but they didn't even stop at 1 pub and just floated down the river till the end. Weird....
Anyways us 6 were having a ball and we were slightly tipsy by this stage. Along with writing on each other with permanent markers there were stensils and spray paint cans (that are used to touch up car paint work) that people were using to make patterns on each others skin. I had no idea how this spray paint was going to come off but Lauren and I got our legs spray painted!!!! I had pink hearts and black stars all the way up my left leg and it looked sweet! We were proper tubing now with our bodies covered in everything possible.
We went tubing again but this time there were too many pubs to choose from. Lauren and Nikki ended up in a different bar to the rest of us but after a few shouts across the river, they noticed where we were and joined us. This was the first bar to have a zip slide and it looked so much fun.. me being me and the wee adrenaline junkie I am, decided to have a shot :) When I got to the top, all I could see was Abi's fear in her face when she realised it was me haha. I made sure it was deep enough where I was going to land etc and there were loads of others doing it too :) It was so much fun and I got back to the bar safely with no injuries!!!
On our next tube down the river... Mr Tom from Norway decided it would be hilarious to tip me out of my tube, not very funny but at least my camera was in my pouch this time. I managed to grab my flip flops but I lost my 'very expensive 40p' ;) purple ray bans! It was such a laugh and I got him back so it was all good. We went to another couple bars but by this time we had moved ahead of the craziness and the pubs by this stage were quite quiet. We played drinking jenga at one and then the last pub we went too had food, so we ordered some BBQ chicken skewers to sobar us up. Nobody was too drunk though because we had heard of the horror stories, we were all as sensible as possible when you were being fed whiskey shots everywhere. In the last pub they had the spray paint and stensils out for anyone to help themselves... Lauren of course got her hands on them and covered everyone in stars and hearts. For some reason I gave Tom a kiss on the cheek and ended up with white paint on my nose and lips, it was hilarious at the time but the photos looked awful haha. I got a cool red heart sprayed in the middle of my chest which looked ace when I went out at night with my black dress :)
Time was moving fast and we were aware it was getting dark. Since Nikki and Tom had been kayaking in the morning down the same stretch of river, they knew where the end was that we would get tuk tuks back. So we all headed for our last drunken tube to the finish line. All six of us arrived back on dry land, alive, bones intact, few bruises here and there and covered in spray paint!!! Group photo was taken on the finish line with all 6 survivors of the Laos Tubing Malarkey.
The tuk tuk journey back to the town wasn't near as bad as the one on the way there, this might have had something to do with the alcohol level in our blood but it felt much safer. There was a hammock in the tuk tuk that came down from the roof half way back, and me being me decided I'd have a wee lie down. There wasn't much space as we we're crammed in like sardines again but it was affa comfy. We made it back at 6.05pm and managed to get our deposits back for our tubes which we were all super chuffed with.
We headed back to the hotel to get showered and ready for going out at night. We all ended up in Tom and Kjetil's room first taking loads of stupid photos and laughing about the shenanigans we got up to today. The shower in the hotel was the worst shower ever, infact this is the most basic hotel we have stayed it. The permanent ink wasn't even budging in the shower never mind the spray paint. We got ready and dressed up with all the writing and shapes fully intact, ready to go out for a group dinner at 7.30pm with Charles. We were now officially allowed back on the Gap Tour :)
We went to a restaurant that served amazing fish and chips, and everyone certainly had the munchies by this time. I was the only one that had taken a camera this afternoon so I uploaded them all onto my iPad and showed the photos while we were waiting for our food. Next stop was a 'Friends' bar where we all collapsed on the mattresses, we had a couple drinks but we were all totally exhausted. It was so comfy lying there I could have fallen asleep, I didn't stay long and headed back to the hotel about 11pm with Lauren and Nikki. I had started to get a thumping headache... like a hangover before I went to sleep!
When we got back to the hotel, they guy on reception had fallen asleep on a mattress next to the desk, so we couldn't get our room keys. This is quite common in Asia, the security of the hotels isn't the best. I went behind the desk and racked for the keys in all the drawers but had no luck. I was exhausted and my head was killing me by this time. Stu and Abi then came back and Stu woke the dude up and that's when we found out he was sleeping with the keys under his pillow.
I went up to the room and by this time I had the worst headache ever. I couldn't lie down and the lights made it ten times worse, so I was pacing the room in the dark. I ended up going for a shower to get all the paint off of me incase it was that but I had to scrub with my nails and it was so sore to come off. After the shower the painkillers had kicked in and I was feeling so much better. Lauren had come back to the room by this time and I was able to actually lie down and try and sleep. It was horrible... I wanted to phone home but knew that wasn't a good idea haha.
Anyways despite the last few hours of the day, I had the best day ever!!!!! It really was an experience I will never forget and I want to do it all over again now :) I could spend a week here easily... not sure my liver would love me though. xxx
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