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Vang Vieng Experiance - Day Two
Another knackering but amazing day. We started the day with breakfast in the restaurant while watching the local villagers come down to the river to wash. People were washing themselves only a couple of meters away from others brushing their teeth! And there was me being paranoid about the water in the taps not being clean. After brekkie we took a walk with Singh through the village. He told us a bit about their culture and the reasons why they build their homes high on stilts. They believe it keeps their home cleaner than being on the ground. Almost every home had their own live stock, chickens, cows, goats, pigs and they all roamed free! Pigs were grazing in the school grounds, cows stood in the roads. Singh told us that if a car hits a cow, the farmer that owns the cow must pay for the damages! There are so many roosters here, I thought they only crowed when the sun was setting and rising, there's so many of them though that I think they must be in competition of who can crow first, they do it all bloody day and night! Singh took us into one of the schools class rooms. The children were so excited to see us, they beamed smiles at us as they said hello, they were very sweet.
After the village we were picked up and taken back to a spot on the river where we crossed another bridge, this one was safe though. There were two other groups with us, we crossed some rice fields that led to a temple and 'Elephant Cave'. There were no elephants, just a big Buddha inside and some rock formations that have made the outline shape of an elephant. We are not entirely convinced that it is all natural, there looks like there are some carving marks in the stone. It doesn't help that the people have carved a person figure into the rock right next to it. Anyway it still looked cool. Singh showed us to the table in front of the Buddha, there were wooden sticks with numbers written on them placed in a jar. Singh asked us to pull out a stick each and read out the number. Then he picked up a small book and looked up our numbers to see what they meant. Chris was first, Singh said "you are very intelligent, you have worked very hard to get to where you are today and will have great fortune in the future to come". He also said "you will have very good health". Mine was a little different, Singh said "you will also have good fortune and you will have a well paid job". But then he ruined it by saying "you see Chris only as a friend at the moment". He saw my confused face and then said "but as a best friend, which is very good". Great, Chris will never let that go lol. As we walked out Chris sulked that I don't love him lol silly fool.
We carried on following a small stream that led to the bottom of the mountains. I hoped there wouldn't be any more climbing, my legs were aching so much from yesterday, luckily there wasn't. We arrived at a cave where a river was dammed to create the small stream. The river was coming through the cave and there were ropes leading into it. We grabbed a tube and head light each and made our way in. The water was cold but not as cold as the waterfall yesterday. There were many other groups there too, we were all lined up next to each other pulling on the rope to direct us further into the cave. My headlight wasn't very strong at all, in fact at times I thought it switched off! It was very annoying when we had to walk through part of the cave, it was so dark. When we all reached the end of the cave and couldn't go any further we were told to switch off all our lights and sit in silence. It was pitch black, I asked if anyone had seen the film 'The Decent'. That's what it reminded us of. I switched my torch on before anyone else did and shined it against my face while pulling a scary ugly face. Chris laughed and the girl next to him s*** herself hehe!
We were all cold now and couldn't wait to see warm daylight. Singh had another tasty barbecue waiting for us.
After our meal the group headed back towards the river. We got in the tuk tuk and were taken to the top of the river where we would begin to kayak. Me and Chris shared one, again the scenery was very beautiful and peaceful. We slowly drifted down river until we came to some small rapids. Singh went through first showing us where we had to go, they were fun. A little further down we came to some more rapids, these ones were stronger but still considered as very easy. We made it through and celebrated but then hit a rock underneath and suddenly we were both tossed into the water as the kayak flipped over. The kayak landed straight on top of me, after a few moments of holding my breath I suddenly realised s*** I better get out of this! I was still holding onto my paddle and attempted to flip the kayak back over but I was too weak. My feet dragged against the bottom and I was taken further down river. I bumped my head and then Chris pulled the kayak off of me. I struggled to swim and hold onto my paddle at the same time. Chris yelled at me to stand up as if I wasnt already trying to. I shouted back at him that I couldnt touch the bottom and come f***ing help me, I managed to get to the side without him in the end. It all lasted only a few moments and was very funny. Chris was more concerned about the waterproof bag with our iPad and camera than he was for me. I don't mind though. I would be pissed if we lost all the photos. After that I kept my eyes open for any rocks ahead. We got through the rest of the rapids with ease, I wouldn't like to kayak down the same river in the rainy season when the water level is a lot higher and flowing a lot faster.
We kayaked for a while longer heading towards town. We kept hearing waves of music through the breeze. We knew we were getting closer to where the tubing bars were. We got out for a quick drink at one of the bars. We didn't want to stay for long, we still had quite a bit of the river to kayak up. We got back onto the river and passed all the bars. Singh told us to go ahead as he went over to a local Laos bar. When he caught up he told us a friend of his he had not seen for a long time was at that bar. We didn't think twice about it, Chris said let's turn back and go for a drink then. We paddled back and joined his friend. They were sitting on a platform made of bamboo and mats which were raised just centermeters above the river. They sat in a circle on the mat with a table of food in the middle. Singh told us last night that when Laos people drink beer they take it in turns to drink from the same glass, passing it around the circle. It felt great to be welcomed and offered to drink with them like this. I thought it felt like a drinking game and started to feel tipsy pretty quick. We couldn't stay for too long because our tuk tuk was waiting for us down the river with our bags. We also had to be able to check into another guest house tonight. We thanked them for their kind hospitality
and left.
The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains and the river was glistening, we came to what we thought was a group of rocks in the middle of the river, they wern't rocks but were actually big buffaloes cooling off. We kept our distance from them as we drifted past but Singh smashed straight into one. It moved but the others didn't budge. They were probably used to all the kayakers. When we reached the end we took our tuk tuk back to the office. We paid the lady what we owed her and gave Singh a tip. We really enjoyed our two days and learned a lot about the people here. We have booked a minibus for tomorrow afternoon to take us to Vientiane for one night, then we will fly out to Cambodia the following morning.
We have checked into a guest house just across the road from the tour office. It's cheap, has a hot shower and a double bed. Just what we need right now.
Charlotte & Chris
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