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15 November:
Vang Vieng - partying on the Nam Song!
KIM: After some research by Andy, we are approaching tubing in a different way today. Firstly, Mark and Andy weren't going to bother with tubes, they were swimming. We only headed up at around 2pm and found a tiny spot on the decking at Smile Bar. Beers, sunshine and Lao Whiskey for free, we spent a few hours here as the bar really filled up (aaah.. YouTube video!). We also achieved our first bracelet thingie... seems all travelers have them (along with tattoos and dirty hair). Andy and Mark did a double swing... video will be posted at some point! 2 metres on our tube and we were roped (literally) into Mojito Bar. Mojito Buckets, dancing on tables and being spray painted followed! Time was heading on (we were supposed to be back by 6pm to get your deposit back for your tube)... but no one seemed to mind. Joint decision and we moved another 3 metres on to Bar 3! Much of the same here... Over the river to the Bob Marley Bar (which actually was playing other artists now too). The sun was definitely setting... and it was only when someone (probably sober Chris) mentioned something about Tubes, did we realize... there were no tubes left... but still a whole lot of people on the deck.
To explain... as you pull into a bar, you ditch your tube in the pile and when you leave, you just grab another one. So you don't have the same tube bar after bar... you just have A tube. A tube gives you your deposit back in full before 6pm and less 20,000 kip after 6pm. No tube, no deposit. So... when we noticed there was only one tube left, and the sun was close to setting (meaning approaching 6pm) there was a bit of worry. One tube between four people makes it fairly impossible to get down the river to a spot where we'd need to get out and be tuk tuk'd back. Miraculously and quite literally out of nowhere, we found another tube! While Andy and Mark swam back to the first bar to look for any others, Chris and I hung onto ours for our life! Floating down the Nam Song, we had a few hangers on, who tried to steal my tube from under my bum! But it wasn't happening. We finally got ourselves home with our tubes! (but late!)
Quiet night after dinner... time to recover for tomorrow!!
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