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After my last post, with my dad's words bouncing around my head and the sense of adventure I've inherited...I went for a walk away from the town. I walked for about a mile down the road and away from the hostels, bars and buzz from the bright lights of the Veng vieng. As you get further away, the bamboo shacks become more abundant with families, fathers and children relaxing in the mid afternoon sun on a hammock, whilst in front of the house old women are sitting 5 in a row with salad displayed on a table waving a plastic bag on the end of a stick as a deterrent for flies. As I kept walking, 3 kids came running around me, laughing and smiling with nothing but 2 plastic bottles to bang together, completely unfazed by their lack of clean clothes, hot water and shiny new toys. I turned off the road and onto a dirt track following the road round. Men with nothing but an engine on wheels with a long handle pushed on by. I came into the clearing and stopped. The sun was just coming down behind the overgrown, green humpback mountains, rice paddie fields lay splayed out in front of them, reflecting the swirling clouds and blue water like a mirror with the only sounds disturbing the peace were the children in the water waving hello and the hum of the engine plough in the distance trickling along. I picked my jaw up from the floor and carried on towards the river. Up ahead was a truck full of village people, their conversation stopped dead as I approached with 20 men, women and children looking at me with wonder, smiling saying "hello" with one women chirping up with "very handsome". I carried on walking and found more people, totally taken aback by my presence in their farm. I carried on and walked by a tree house, with backpackers lying down, hungover on the veranda. I walked in, asked for a room and owner led me through the hostel past people playing music, relaxing on pillows with to an incredible mountain view with jungle trees all around. We went down a wooden walkway, almost bridge to my dorm. I met some Danish boys, dropped my bags off, checked out the outside shower and grabbed dinner with my new roommates. It's incredible to meet all these new, amazing, like minded people with inspirational travelling stories, sharing experiences, music, interests and forming strong friendships in a matter of minutes, which is something so rare yet found in the most incredible places. That night we went to the bar "Fat monkeys". A place that looks like it popped up the night before, supported by frames and covered in tarpaulin with barrels at the bar rather than stools. That night we went to a "Jungle Party", more of a car park than a jungle but nonetheless it was worth going. We got there in a crammed tuk tuk, singing intoxicated songs the whole journey. We were greeted to bonfires, DJ booth tree houses, cheap almost free alcohol with lady boys and prostitutes prowling around. The night turned into a drunken blur topped off with me and a lad from Bristol (Sam) getting to know each other whilst devouring a bacon and salad baguette which cost 80p! The next day we all woke up like a scene from the walking dead, groaning, sweating in the humidity and reminiscing about our previous nights mistakes. I chilled on the veranda, with Sam, Marcus (man from south London) and Nat (girl from Australia) and after much deliberation and effort, we decided to go tubing. This is what Veng Vieng is famous for. The racing "Nam song" river, even the name fires up the imagination for what could lie ahead. Tubing is where you sit in a large rubber ring and float down the river, sounds nice and relaxing yeah? Wrong! This is tubing with a difference. Backpackers used to flock here in the past due to the endless amounts of bars that littered the banks. These bars would offer zip lines and "death slides" for less than sober travellers to test their nerve. However due to people's ignorance, zero safety regulations and flowing beer, too many travellers became seriously injured on the jagged rocks below or worse...died. It was estimated 30 travellers a year died, doing this iconic South East Asian event. Due to this figure, 75% of the bars were shut down and the zip lines and death slides removed. Now only 3 bars are left. We floated down and came to a bar. The owner throws out a line with a bottle on the end to pull you in. Climb up the wooden steps and your greeted to the youth club for adults. The music was blaring, girls in bikinis walking around playing volleyball, ping pong or basketball under a fountain. We sat on more verandas soaking in the sun before playing flip cup and beer pong with other tubers whilst listening to "The persuit of happiness by kid cudi"...not a bad song considering the situation. We left a few hours later, with arms full of string bands (you're given one for every drink you buy) and floated down the river in a ring of 30 people, singing and topping up on beer through a "float through" bar. There was something so surreal about the moment. 30 strangers drinking and chatting in unison, people swimming and standing in the middle of the river with the mountainous backdrop behind them, so surreal to the point where it is still not sinking in. We finally got back to town to see the British & Irish lions clinch the series against Australia with an emphatic win. We walked back to the hostel, the sun was going down and the day was coming to a close...not quite.
That night we stumbled to Fat Monkeys for the third night in succession. My stomach was in turmoil after heavy drinking the last few days, so I decided to lay off the special sauce. We left the place went across the road to a place called "Jaidee" this way a very stereotypical aisan dive bar. Sporadic amounts of liquor bottles on the poorly made shelves, red, intimidating lighting, an Asian man in a white vest, tattoos up and down his body, wiping down the bar asking us what we want in his broken English with slow and chilled music in the background. It turns out the owner "Jaidee" is the one of the best barman in town, always wearing a big friendly smile, giving us free shots and drinks on demand and blowing our minds with tricks. As we were about to leave, the heavens opened and the rain pummelled the corrugated iron roof. We met some Sri Lankan girls in there (Saskia and Aya), asked Jaidee if we could stay until the rain stopped and stayed up all night talking and drinking. We finally all left at 5 in the morning, as we walked up the road, the rain and the clouds had provided us with one of the most breathtaking scenes I've ever seen. The low, thin, white clouds hovered over and in the mountains in the distance, displaying the green over growth in parts, this wasn't the best part though. That was reserved for when I got back to the hostel, sat on the veranda and sank into my pillow, looking at the rigid mountains in the distance, the overflowing river and the women in the sun shade hats, fishing for food. The air was crisp, the temperature cool and the view perfect. There was no better was to end a truly incredible...incredible day.
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Mother Amazing Joe, what fantastic things you are experiencing; watch out for all those women after my handsome boy! xxx