Day 17-Tubing, Slide of Death...Ok lets go to Bangkok

Hangovers when on vacation are possibly the worst things ever. It wasn't even that it was a hangover necessarily, but I was not feeling good when I woke up for my third day in Vang Vieng. I had woken up early and made my way to my favorite internet cafe where I ordered my usual cappucino and sat trying to figure out my plan for after Vang Vieng.

The Gibbon Experience had emailed me and told me that they didn't have any availabilities for the rest of the month, which really frustrated me because I had counted on traveling up into northern Laos and doing that for my Christmas activity. Anyway, I figured that I might as well start thinking of other options, but nothing was really exciting me. Conrad strolled into the cafe and I greeted him and slightly vented my frustrations to him about my lack of plans and hangover from the tubing and buckets from the day before.

Conrad seemed to be feeling great, and I could tell he had his heart set on tubing. I honestly really wasn't feeling the tubing vibe, but I thought that it was at least worth a shot, so I got my running clothes on and chugged some vitamin water and set out for a run in hopes of clearing up my hangover.

The run was a new route which took me through the countryside in Laos. It was a beautiful, although unbearably hot run, with monks passing by in there tangerine robes on bicycles, families of goats grazing in the fields and many old women pushing carts down the road. The limestone hills and lush greenery were the backdrop for the dusty roads that I was pushing myself to run in on, in hopes of sweating out the Tiger whiskey and vodka and red bulls.

I felt alot better once I had returned from my run, and showered and quickly got ready to go to lunch. We watched another episode of friends in a small roadside restaurant as I ate my last meel of Laap or Larp, the Loas popular food, and drank a pina colado. We sat quietly and then got into a tuk tuk and traveled to the start point for the tubing.

Everyday must be the same with the loud music and masses of drunken 20 somethings. Conrad ordered a Lao beer and I got a delicious mojito bucket and we sat on the dock and watched the impressive stunts of people hanging upside down and doing multiple flips into the water.

Suddenly, I noticed 3 people who looked really familiar. It was York, Lars, and Yohan some of the people Robyn and I had met in Halong Bay on the Castaway Island. I had thought I would meet up with them sooner and was very suprized to see them. They were floating down the river in tubes, so I wasn't able to get their attention, but I figured I would talk to them at a bar down the way.

We continued to walk down to the next bar, where there was mud wrestling or mud volleyball. Normally, I would find that fun, but I wasn't quite feeling it. I convinced Conrad to steal some tubes with me. As we were about to do that, a man stopped us and said we had to pay for them. I convinced him to let us have the tubes for just 50,000 kip (about $5) and off we went down the river.

Then as we were floating down the river I saw my friends over on the side at a bar playing ping pong, so I suggested we stop and then we could get some more drinks and do the swings and everything. Conrad was chatting with some new friends he met in the drink line, and I got a new bucket and wandered over to where I saw the boys.

They were really suprized when they saw me. They had not expected to run into me again, because I had told them I would arrive to Laos on the 12th, but my plans had been delayed. Then they suggested I head with them to Bangkok to meet Lar's family and then go down to Cambodia with York, because he would be traveling alone.

"Sure! Sounds good!" I said, considering my plans to do the Gibbon Experience had fallen through.

And that was that! I would be traveling with a Danish boy, a German and a Swedish boy, leaving for Bangkok the next morning. The plan sounded good to me, considering I already had my visa for Cambodia and did want to see it.

I introduced the boys to Conrad and the party continued on. Conrad went on the swing high above the water and was swinging back and forth like Tarzan when the swing had a rope snap and became broken for the rest of the evening. Luckily, Conrad was ok but that left me only one ride to do..... The Slide of Death.

Everyone had said, "Don't do the slide!". It was supposedly really dangerous because of the angle it shoots you into the air at. York, of course, was all for pressuring me to do the slide of death, and so once the swing broke that became my only option for a water ride before we headed back before sunset.

I climbed up the ladder and traveled to the top. "Shit... relax, relax, relax and you won't get hurt," I told myself. Of course I have no travel insurance, so injury is not what I am trying to get. Anyway, 1,2,3 and down I went. I tried to keep my body in a nice torpedo like shape and when I got to the bottom, I relaxed and kept my body streamlined.

SMACK!!! My legs and butt smacked the water and were stinging in pain. Other than that I was ok. When I swam to shore, the back of my legs were completely red, but I was ok.


We headed down the river in our tubes and then left them on the shore when we saw a bridge we could cross. The bridge was probably the most dangerous thing I had ever seen and was pretty much equivalent of tight rope walking, but we managed to make it across safely and get tuk tuks.

I don't know why, but I thought it would also be a good idea to ride on top of the tuk tuk. I actually would advise against this under all circumstances, but York and I and another guy held on despite the tuk tuk drivers yells to get off.

We made it back and went to the hotel and relaxed before dinner. A noisy bar is where we ate at before heading to Sunset Bar for the night. Unfortunately, the bar closed early so we just had a few shots of the dreaded Tiger Whiskey and our last Laos Beer before heading in for the night.