13 November
Vang Vieng
KIM: Tubing in Vang Vieng... we've seen the t-shirts everywhere, we were about to get our very own!
To try and describe Vang Vieng, it's like a mecca for Friends lovers. And by Friends, I mean Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe! It's like E4 (UK channel) in the evenings, but that never end in constant E4 and E4+1, back to back... every episode of Friends ever. Restaurants are pillow and mattress filled, and you spend many an hour laughing at Ross' leather pants and "Joey doesn't share food!"
After a torturous boiling hot night in the guesthouse sauna (or so it felt) Mark was up early for his first run in a month (which resulted in shin splints!) while I lazily slept in. He came back having booked us in to another little guesthouse on the rivers edge... with a balcony, a little bit of luxury still at the bargain price of about £6 a night! We moved our belongings and headed for a bit of breakfast - taking in about 4 episodes of friends while we did.
Not wanting to waste any time, we decided to find out what this tubing thing was all about. Tractor inners as the tubes (no beachy floating devices allowed), we had our hands stamps (our deposit) and onto a tuk tuk... where we met who would become our drinking companions for the next four days. Andy and Chris... from Morgan Stanley in London, who we weirdly found only 1 degree of separation and it wasn't even through Nicola Jesser who worked (so she claims, Nic - they've never heard of you!) at Morgan Stanley but rather through someone I was at Uni with. Weird. ANYWAY...
Not entirely sure how to tackle this tubing thing... when we arrived at the drop off point we saw a river bank filled with bars all playing a different tune and of course... the swings! We decided to get on with it, and jump in our tubes... where we cruised for about 2 metres before a coke bottle (plastic) filled with water attached to a rope was thrown to us in a life-saving operation. Grab hold, they pull you in and you get a free shot of Lao Whiskey! Bar one, two and three we skipped and decided to head to what became known to us as the Bob Marley Bar. For the simple fact that they played only Bob Marley during the two beers we had there. The boys swung, we soaked up the sun and we were on our way again. Cruising down the MEKONG! Although it's actually the Nam Song River... but we only found out the day after.
Day one on the river was done this way... nice and easy... plenty of cruising and stopping periodically at bars for a beer or two, a slide and a swing. We made it to the end in plenty of daylight and wondered to ourselves where all the YouTube videos were made... as we didn't see any of the debauchery that those videos provided. Hmm... didn't take us long to work out there are two ways to DO TUBING!

Back to Andy and Chris' hotel for a swim (bloody flashpackers on their three week break have a lush hotel and swimming pool) a few more beers, we headed home for a shower and met for dinner at an awesome Irish bar, with great pies! Over the road for two for one buckets and a few snap snap drinking games, it wasn't long until we were dancing like rockstars at Q Bar. Too many buckets to count, we were home (showered!) and in bed. LARGE large night!

MARK: Large night is an understatement I think Kim... When I woke up the next morning my sheet was red! Not from any alcohol induced injuries but from a bunch of people painted completely head to toe in red body paint. Clearly they did their days tubing the 'other' way which we were going to discover in the morning...