Tubing in Laos

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Lovely day with brilliant sunshine today, so met up with a guy Pete who resembles Ricky Gervais and the group he had met yesterday. An English brother and sister Tom and Rachel. Tom talks just like Harry Potter, so I had Ricky Gervais on one side and Harry Potter on the other, Scottish Rory who sounded like Dylan Moran, even though he’s a Scot! And Dan from London. They were all early 20’s, and fantastic people. Pete’s mid 30’s. We hobbled barefoot after lunch to the tubing shed as we were tubing down the river. We got our tyre rings and climbed on a tuktuk to take us to the top of the river. The ride in the tuktuk was almost a death-trap. Health and safety? What’s that? NON-existent. At the top of the hill was the first bar, so we piled in with tons more people. We were drinking Beerlao which is the cheap as chips local brew over here, and in every bar you got a free shot of Loa rice whisky which blows your head off. There was a really high rope swing, so all of us except Rachel had a go, and went flying over the river holding on, but me being so upper bodily challenged, slipped at the end of the first swoop and went smack into the river below. Everyone else managed at least 3 swoops. At least there was a guy at the side throwing out a ring to drag you back in. Pete had a go and the boy at the top wasn’t concentrating and pulling the rope back in like he was supposed to, and the rope twisted round Pete’s testicles and back. We were sat watching in horror but laughing at the same time, he managed to manoeuvre himself out and drop to the river. When he joined us, his shorts were ripped, he had a huge rope burn on his side and had almost become a eunuch! We got in our rings and went tubing down the river, and at every bar there are guys pulling us in with ropes as the current is so strong, then we climbed up makeshift bamboo ladders to reach the top. People have died tubing, usually because their too drunk or stoned. There was a guy throwing his guts up in the first bar - and that was only the first one for gods sake!! We stopped at most of the bars on the way down taking our free shots and playing drinking games, and the atmosphere was just buzzing, chatting away to random strangers. The guys were going on the swings and zip lines, me, Rachel and Pete sat them out as we valued our lives too much. We were sharing buckets of vodka and whisky concoctions, and I haven’t laughed so much in ages. We ended up in a bar that was a total mud fest and everyone was slipping and falling over in the mud. Me and Rachel got jumped on by guys giving us bear hugs to cover us in mud, and we all ended up having mud wrestling fights. No one was saved. It was so much fun though. We carried on to a couple more bars and we were gone for 7 hours in total, and when it got pitch black and we couldn’t drink anymore, we decided to head back. We got in our tubes and all held onto each other, but some of us got separated on the way down. I had Tom still held onto me, so he held my hand and swam us down stream. Rachel was shouting ahead to see if we were still together, and we assured her we were fine as it was pitch black and no one could see anyone else. Me and Tom were staring at the backdrop of mountains and all the stars out in the sky, and it was beautiful. We saw the light where we had to get out where the tuktuk was waiting, and Tom did all the swimming to get us there. Full credit to him, he was a total gem, he kept reassuring me he wouldn’t let go and gripped my hand tightly pulling us along. We were laughing our heads off so much saying how we’re never going to forget this day. We managed to clamber out up the bank and pile into the tuktuk with the others to take us back to town, then the heavens opened and the monsoon rains poured down. It was such a fantastic day and the most fun I’ve had in ages. I’ve only managed to accumulate a couple of bruises from the rocks which is pretty good going, (no appointments at Botox Manchester needed). I was expecting a lot more.