Our trip has now ended and we are safely at home, settled back into our lives in America. While we may spend our days the same way we did before we left, this trip changed both of us. Traveling will do that to you, seeing how others live and how lucky we are to be here will (hopefully) make us appreciate what we have a little more. Plus, it's nice to know where we are sleeping every night!
Thanks for following us, I know I ramble sometimes and the blog is definitely more wordy than we intended, but hopefully everyone at least enjoyed the pictures. Hopefully this blog finds everyone happy, healthy, and safe, and maybe even inspired to do some traveling of your own!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Back to Bangkok
Our trip is coming to an end where it began. Because the political situation was so unstable when we arrived in Bangkok, we didn’t do any of the normal touristy things so we came back a day early. Our train arrived around 7 am, so we caught a taxi to back packer central and found a room near Koh San Road. After a shower and a bite to eat, we found a taxi that would take us directly to the Grand Palace, on a meter and no scams allowed. This sounds easy, but in Bangkok it never is!
We hired a tour guide to show us around the Grand Palace, one of the best ideas we’ve had yet. Jakie gave us a wealth of knowledge about Thai history, the current ruling family, and a little bit of politics. She also threw in some shade umbrellas and cold water for our hour and a half walk through the grounds. The Grand Palace really is beautiful and worth a visit. It is so full of history in a country that really has been through a lot of different time periods and under many different influences, it’s interesting to see it all culminate in one place.
After the Grand Palace tour, we walked through the local Amulet Market and watched Thai men already wearing multiple lucky amulet necklaces dig through piles to look for the “real ones.” Whatever makes an amulet real or fake is probably something we will never understand!
The next stop was the Wat Pho complex, home of the world’s largest reclining Buddha. This is a massive image of Buddha lying on his side as he dies and reaches Nirvana, and at Wat Pho he is covered in gold leaf. He looks incredibly serene and peaceful, but the most impressive part are his feet: intricately detailed pictures inlaid with mother of pearl cover the larger than life soles of his feet. Other than the hundreds of tourists in a very small space, the Reclining Buddha is gorgeous! We wandered around the complex for awhile before we decided that we were “wat-ed” out for the trip. We headed back to Koh San Road to check things out.
It was strange to see so many people just started their trip as ours is coming to a close. We walked through the market and finally found the hammocks we have been searching for the entire trip. Koh San Road and the surrounding area is just ridiculous… the streets are lined with vendors, most of whom have signs that read “Will Buy Anything” and will also sell tourists anything they want. Behind the vendors are a line of travel agencies, internet cafes, bars, and restaurants. Above these are the guest houses. People say that Koh San Road never sleeps, and those who stay there spend their nights on the street and their days asleep. We were enthralled in the mad house, but glad to be a few blocks away!
After an afternoon nap and our last Thai massage (for real this time!), we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and had one of the best meals yet in this country. The food was wonderful and a local photographer was showing his prints in the restaurant, so we had some lovely art to look at. When we had sufficiently gorged ourselves, we walked to Koh San Road to spend our remaining baht on beers at a street side bar and watch the madness. It is really very entertaining to watch the range in traveler types pass us: from the overdressed to the barely dressed, from suitcases to empty handed, from smashed to sober, from the bald to the dreadlocks, this little slice of Bangkok has every type of tourist you can imagine. When our baht was spent, we went back to our quiet room and curled up for our last night traveling.
We hired a tour guide to show us around the Grand Palace, one of the best ideas we’ve had yet. Jakie gave us a wealth of knowledge about Thai history, the current ruling family, and a little bit of politics. She also threw in some shade umbrellas and cold water for our hour and a half walk through the grounds. The Grand Palace really is beautiful and worth a visit. It is so full of history in a country that really has been through a lot of different time periods and under many different influences, it’s interesting to see it all culminate in one place.
After the Grand Palace tour, we walked through the local Amulet Market and watched Thai men already wearing multiple lucky amulet necklaces dig through piles to look for the “real ones.” Whatever makes an amulet real or fake is probably something we will never understand!
The next stop was the Wat Pho complex, home of the world’s largest reclining Buddha. This is a massive image of Buddha lying on his side as he dies and reaches Nirvana, and at Wat Pho he is covered in gold leaf. He looks incredibly serene and peaceful, but the most impressive part are his feet: intricately detailed pictures inlaid with mother of pearl cover the larger than life soles of his feet. Other than the hundreds of tourists in a very small space, the Reclining Buddha is gorgeous! We wandered around the complex for awhile before we decided that we were “wat-ed” out for the trip. We headed back to Koh San Road to check things out.
It was strange to see so many people just started their trip as ours is coming to a close. We walked through the market and finally found the hammocks we have been searching for the entire trip. Koh San Road and the surrounding area is just ridiculous… the streets are lined with vendors, most of whom have signs that read “Will Buy Anything” and will also sell tourists anything they want. Behind the vendors are a line of travel agencies, internet cafes, bars, and restaurants. Above these are the guest houses. People say that Koh San Road never sleeps, and those who stay there spend their nights on the street and their days asleep. We were enthralled in the mad house, but glad to be a few blocks away!
After an afternoon nap and our last Thai massage (for real this time!), we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and had one of the best meals yet in this country. The food was wonderful and a local photographer was showing his prints in the restaurant, so we had some lovely art to look at. When we had sufficiently gorged ourselves, we walked to Koh San Road to spend our remaining baht on beers at a street side bar and watch the madness. It is really very entertaining to watch the range in traveler types pass us: from the overdressed to the barely dressed, from suitcases to empty handed, from smashed to sober, from the bald to the dreadlocks, this little slice of Bangkok has every type of tourist you can imagine. When our baht was spent, we went back to our quiet room and curled up for our last night traveling.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Nong Khai: Sculpture Park and Lazy River Afternoon
With an early start on a very hot day, we decided to forgo the bicycling as a result of yesterday. We rented a motorbike and headed to the Sculpture Park that Nong Khai is famous for. Story has it that a Buddhist Laotian spent a few years living underground with a hermit in the mountains of Laos when he was younger. Back in society, he maintained a lot of his mentor’s thoughts on life. He created a less impressive sculpture park in Laos, and with the communist takeover in the 1970s, he fled across the Mekong into Nong Khai and started work on his second sculpture park. The sculptures are massive and hugely impressive: an eclectic mix of Buddhist folk tales and Hindu mythology, the park looms with concrete figures almost one hundred feet tall. It was very impressive and a great way to spend a few hours in the morning.
Our favorite sculptures were the very detailed circle of life according to Buddhism and the sculpture of Buddha sitting on a throne made from the coiled body of a snake with seven heads. Very impressive!
After our sculpturing, we drove to the Mekong to see the sunken Chedi. During a particularly wet year in the 1800s, a Buddhist temple started its century long slide into the center of the Mekong. Now, you can only see about the top ten feet of the temple during the dry season (or very early rainy season as it so happens).
Back at Mut Mee, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the garden. The breeze blowing off the river combined with the whirring hum of the overhead fans led to a drowsily beautiful afternoon. We both had what we thought would be our last Thai massage, caught a tuk tuk to the train station, and got settled in for our 12 hour journey to Bangkok.
We watched the sunset in northern Thailand, and watched it rise in Bangkok without much eventfulness in between. We slept most of the way, not great, but well enough that the time passed pretty quickly. Our first overnight train and we didn’t even have anything stolen!
Our favorite sculptures were the very detailed circle of life according to Buddhism and the sculpture of Buddha sitting on a throne made from the coiled body of a snake with seven heads. Very impressive!
After our sculpturing, we drove to the Mekong to see the sunken Chedi. During a particularly wet year in the 1800s, a Buddhist temple started its century long slide into the center of the Mekong. Now, you can only see about the top ten feet of the temple during the dry season (or very early rainy season as it so happens).
Back at Mut Mee, we spent the afternoon relaxing in the garden. The breeze blowing off the river combined with the whirring hum of the overhead fans led to a drowsily beautiful afternoon. We both had what we thought would be our last Thai massage, caught a tuk tuk to the train station, and got settled in for our 12 hour journey to Bangkok.
We watched the sunset in northern Thailand, and watched it rise in Bangkok without much eventfulness in between. We slept most of the way, not great, but well enough that the time passed pretty quickly. Our first overnight train and we didn’t even have anything stolen!
Vientiane to Nong Khai: Just Not Our Day
Waking up with incredibly sore shoulders is never very pleasant, but doing so knowing that you have to continue travelling is ten times worse. We had to wander around Vientiane for a good hour before we found the bus station to buy tickets to get to the border of Laos and Thailand. Side note about Vientiane: it’s just a big boring city that is very confusing. If you go there, the map in Lonely Planet will not help you navigate! Anyway, after being hopelessly lost and misdirected multiple times, we found it and headed to the Friendship Bridge. This was one of the highlights of the day: the Friendship Bridge is one of the few roads that connect Laos with Thailand across the Mekong River. In Laos, cars drive on the right side of the road and in Thailand, the left. So there is this big jumble of cars crossing over each other with drivers on both sides of the car that make for really great entertainment.
We made it safely to the Mut Mee Guest House in Nong Khai relatively unharmed and checked into a room. Our next order of business was to get some more baht as we had very little after dealing in kip for a week, and then head to the train station to buy our overnight tickets for the following night back to Bangkok. Well, this was quite a disaster. We rented bicycles, and with our janky map missing every other street name, not to mention the entire streets that were left off, and for the second time today got hopelessly lost. After an hour of pedaling around in the blazing midday heat, we finally saw a sign for the train station and followed it. We found it! Our excitement quickly dwindled when we realized we had forgotten to go to an ATM machine in all of our aimless cycling, and we seriously doubted we had enough cash for two tickets. Good news: we found at ATM right outside! Bad news: the machine rejected Justin’s card for some unknown reason, and other people were able to get money out. Really good news: we had just enough cash to buy two tickets (we biked away from the train station with 20 baht… about 75 cents in cash).
Train tickets purchased, we went in search of internet to call Justin’s bank from Skype to figure out the problem. Three stops and one hour later, we finally found wireless internet, but we didn’t realize that it was about 3 am in the States. No one to talk to. On a whim we stopped at 7-11 and miraculously got out cash. We were so excited that we bought beers with our new cash and went back to the guest house.
After waiting 45 minutes for a Mekong River cruise that didn’t happen, we walked along the river promenade and watched the sunset. We stopped at a bar with free wifi, got gin and tonics that I somehow spilled all over myself, and called the bank to sort things out. Further down the river, we stopped at an Issan style restaurant and ordered mystery meals that we had never heard of but turned out to be surprisingly delicious. And at the end of another long day, we went to bed under our mosquito net on the river.
We made it safely to the Mut Mee Guest House in Nong Khai relatively unharmed and checked into a room. Our next order of business was to get some more baht as we had very little after dealing in kip for a week, and then head to the train station to buy our overnight tickets for the following night back to Bangkok. Well, this was quite a disaster. We rented bicycles, and with our janky map missing every other street name, not to mention the entire streets that were left off, and for the second time today got hopelessly lost. After an hour of pedaling around in the blazing midday heat, we finally saw a sign for the train station and followed it. We found it! Our excitement quickly dwindled when we realized we had forgotten to go to an ATM machine in all of our aimless cycling, and we seriously doubted we had enough cash for two tickets. Good news: we found at ATM right outside! Bad news: the machine rejected Justin’s card for some unknown reason, and other people were able to get money out. Really good news: we had just enough cash to buy two tickets (we biked away from the train station with 20 baht… about 75 cents in cash).
Train tickets purchased, we went in search of internet to call Justin’s bank from Skype to figure out the problem. Three stops and one hour later, we finally found wireless internet, but we didn’t realize that it was about 3 am in the States. No one to talk to. On a whim we stopped at 7-11 and miraculously got out cash. We were so excited that we bought beers with our new cash and went back to the guest house.
After waiting 45 minutes for a Mekong River cruise that didn’t happen, we walked along the river promenade and watched the sunset. We stopped at a bar with free wifi, got gin and tonics that I somehow spilled all over myself, and called the bank to sort things out. Further down the river, we stopped at an Issan style restaurant and ordered mystery meals that we had never heard of but turned out to be surprisingly delicious. And at the end of another long day, we went to bed under our mosquito net on the river.
Vang Vieng to Vientiane: Kayaking and Minibus Misadventure
Instead of taking the four hour bus ride from Vang Vieng down to Vientiane and braving the Lao roads, Matt, Justin, and I decided to try our luck kayaking half way on the Namsong. In theory, this was a fabulous idea. There were going to be cliffs to jump off of and class two and three rapids (helmets and life jackets provided, of course) to break up the 40 km in a kayak. After our kayaking, a minibus would meet us and drive us the remaining hour south. However, this wasn’t what we got at all. Not even remotely close in any way except for the fact that kayaks were involved…
We met our Lao guides and a couple from Belgium, we’ll call them Albert and Rosemary, that would form our little adventure group. After our brief intro and the realization that there were no crash hats (this is what Matt calls helmets and I think it’s something that should be adopted into everyday language) and life jackets were optional. After about twenty minutes of paddling in fairly quick moving water, the river basically came to a dead standstill. Literally: parts of the wide, muddy river were actually moving upstream. At this point we asked the guides, who admitted that they were more than slightly hung over, when we would get to the rapids and cliff jumping. They looked confused at first, and then laughed. We quickly found out that kayaking on that part of the river happens only in the rainy season, south of the dam. We had the pleasure of paddling for four hours on a river that didn’t move until we got to the dam. Now don’t get me wrong: once we came to grips with the fact that we had been sorely misled, we actually had a great time. The scenery was gorgeous, and we got to stop for bar-b-que lunch at a family’s small rice and papaya farm. The worst part was that Albert was a complete jackass and kept going on and on about how glorious the simple, poor life is that the people of Lao live, while thoroughly enjoying his experiences there with his first world money. The other terrible part was that after about an hour I could barely lift my arms, and Justin definitely did most of the paddling!
To add insult to injury (or maybe I should say just to keep the joke on us), when we finished kayaking we were delivered to one of the pick up trucks with bench seats and a roof bound for Vientiane. I can’t decide whether the best part about this was that there was at least two hours of the drive left, or the fact that the truck already had ten locals and a dying duck in a plastic bag, or that there was all of our luggage and a motorbike on the roof. Oh and I almost forgot: the drive took three hours and we stopped at least twenty times. And the maximum head count is as follows: 15 Laotians, 2 Americans, 2 Belgians (I’m not sure what people from Belgium are called?), 1 Englishman, 1 dying duck, 8 massive bags of rice, 1 motorbike, 5 big backpacks, and 5 small backpacks. In a small pickup truck. Don’t ask how, it’s a feat that should never be recreated! Surprisingly, the first two thirds of this journey (before our bums were all numb and we were starving) were actually very entertaining. A local in the truck spoke exceptionally good English and we had a lot of fun talking with him, but I’m not sure he enjoyed talking to Albert and having his “third worldness” rubbed in his face.
All in all, the day was nothing what we expected but it really was a great experience that we would probably do again. There were definitely times when we needed to just sit and breathe and accept that it was going to be a very long day, but it was a lot of fun. When we finally arrived in Vientiane, we were dirty, smelly, tired, and hungry, and it was all we could do to find a room before we collapsed in a heap on the bed. And then quickly got up when we realized that our clean selves would be sleeping there later.
We met Matt for dinner and decided to treat ourselves to a nice French meal, seeing that it was our last night in French influenced Laos and we had had a very trying day. The three of us walked into the first air con restaurant we’ve seen in weeks and I have to admit that we were more than slightly under dressed and a little delirious. But dinner was wonderful, and by some miracle we all made it back to the guest house before sleeping very soundly!
We met our Lao guides and a couple from Belgium, we’ll call them Albert and Rosemary, that would form our little adventure group. After our brief intro and the realization that there were no crash hats (this is what Matt calls helmets and I think it’s something that should be adopted into everyday language) and life jackets were optional. After about twenty minutes of paddling in fairly quick moving water, the river basically came to a dead standstill. Literally: parts of the wide, muddy river were actually moving upstream. At this point we asked the guides, who admitted that they were more than slightly hung over, when we would get to the rapids and cliff jumping. They looked confused at first, and then laughed. We quickly found out that kayaking on that part of the river happens only in the rainy season, south of the dam. We had the pleasure of paddling for four hours on a river that didn’t move until we got to the dam. Now don’t get me wrong: once we came to grips with the fact that we had been sorely misled, we actually had a great time. The scenery was gorgeous, and we got to stop for bar-b-que lunch at a family’s small rice and papaya farm. The worst part was that Albert was a complete jackass and kept going on and on about how glorious the simple, poor life is that the people of Lao live, while thoroughly enjoying his experiences there with his first world money. The other terrible part was that after about an hour I could barely lift my arms, and Justin definitely did most of the paddling!
To add insult to injury (or maybe I should say just to keep the joke on us), when we finished kayaking we were delivered to one of the pick up trucks with bench seats and a roof bound for Vientiane. I can’t decide whether the best part about this was that there was at least two hours of the drive left, or the fact that the truck already had ten locals and a dying duck in a plastic bag, or that there was all of our luggage and a motorbike on the roof. Oh and I almost forgot: the drive took three hours and we stopped at least twenty times. And the maximum head count is as follows: 15 Laotians, 2 Americans, 2 Belgians (I’m not sure what people from Belgium are called?), 1 Englishman, 1 dying duck, 8 massive bags of rice, 1 motorbike, 5 big backpacks, and 5 small backpacks. In a small pickup truck. Don’t ask how, it’s a feat that should never be recreated! Surprisingly, the first two thirds of this journey (before our bums were all numb and we were starving) were actually very entertaining. A local in the truck spoke exceptionally good English and we had a lot of fun talking with him, but I’m not sure he enjoyed talking to Albert and having his “third worldness” rubbed in his face.
All in all, the day was nothing what we expected but it really was a great experience that we would probably do again. There were definitely times when we needed to just sit and breathe and accept that it was going to be a very long day, but it was a lot of fun. When we finally arrived in Vientiane, we were dirty, smelly, tired, and hungry, and it was all we could do to find a room before we collapsed in a heap on the bed. And then quickly got up when we realized that our clean selves would be sleeping there later.
We met Matt for dinner and decided to treat ourselves to a nice French meal, seeing that it was our last night in French influenced Laos and we had had a very trying day. The three of us walked into the first air con restaurant we’ve seen in weeks and I have to admit that we were more than slightly under dressed and a little delirious. But dinner was wonderful, and by some miracle we all made it back to the guest house before sleeping very soundly!
Spelunking in Vang Vieng
With the massive limestone cliffs everywhere and all the advice to go caving while in Laos, how could we resist a day of spelunking? Frank was suffering from food poisoning (or drinking too much dirty river water while tubing… we still aren’t sure which!), so he and Lauren opted out of today’s adventure. Matt and Alex however rented bikes and joined us on our journey to the Phou Kham Cave and the Blue Lagoon. The road out of town quickly progressed from pavement to gravel to mud with potholes the size of small children and mud puddle deeper than the foot pedals of our bikes.
With only a few very close calls, we made it to the base of the cave, parked, and started up the ridiculously steep stairs (that were much taller than they were wide) to the mouth of the cave. Standing at the top of the stairs, we were all amazed at the gaping hole in the side of the cliff that was today’s adventure. Stupidly, none of us had thought to bring flashlights (or torches, as our English friends call them), but we were intelligent enough to rent one headlamp to share between the four of us. The visible part of the cave from the top was larger than any we had ever been in, and that was only the beginning: the cave just kept snaking back into the mountains, and we went as far as we possibly could without getting ourselves into any sticky situations. The cave was decorated with stalactites and stalagmites, columns and pillars, water in puddles and dripping from the high ceiling, and many others exploring the vast network of tunnels. We tried to take a few pictures, but they will never do the cave justice!
After a few hours of spelunking and sweating, we walked back down the “stairs” to the Blue Lagoon at the bottom of mountain. The lagoon is fed by a mountain spring and therefore much, much cooler than the water of other rivers and so refreshing. We all thought it was supposed to be cooler inside caves, but this wasn’t the case for today and we bathed in the cool waters of the turquoise pond. With the vibrantly green grass nearby and the deep blue sky speckled with the perfect number of clouds above, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. There were more rope swings and a few overhanging trees to jump off of. Upstream a little ways, there were trees that none of us would think to climb and jump out of but a handful of Lao boys were doing just that. They climbed more like monkeys that humans, and had absolutely no fear and were quite excited to have an audience with cameras.
Back in town, Alex booked his hellish 24 hour bus ticket to Vietnam, Frank and Lauren decided to spend another day in Vang Vieng to see the caves, and Matt, Justin, and I booked our kayak/minibus trip to Vientiane for the next day. We had a massive picture, blog, and information swap before heading out to our last dinner as a group.
With only a few very close calls, we made it to the base of the cave, parked, and started up the ridiculously steep stairs (that were much taller than they were wide) to the mouth of the cave. Standing at the top of the stairs, we were all amazed at the gaping hole in the side of the cliff that was today’s adventure. Stupidly, none of us had thought to bring flashlights (or torches, as our English friends call them), but we were intelligent enough to rent one headlamp to share between the four of us. The visible part of the cave from the top was larger than any we had ever been in, and that was only the beginning: the cave just kept snaking back into the mountains, and we went as far as we possibly could without getting ourselves into any sticky situations. The cave was decorated with stalactites and stalagmites, columns and pillars, water in puddles and dripping from the high ceiling, and many others exploring the vast network of tunnels. We tried to take a few pictures, but they will never do the cave justice!
After a few hours of spelunking and sweating, we walked back down the “stairs” to the Blue Lagoon at the bottom of mountain. The lagoon is fed by a mountain spring and therefore much, much cooler than the water of other rivers and so refreshing. We all thought it was supposed to be cooler inside caves, but this wasn’t the case for today and we bathed in the cool waters of the turquoise pond. With the vibrantly green grass nearby and the deep blue sky speckled with the perfect number of clouds above, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. There were more rope swings and a few overhanging trees to jump off of. Upstream a little ways, there were trees that none of us would think to climb and jump out of but a handful of Lao boys were doing just that. They climbed more like monkeys that humans, and had absolutely no fear and were quite excited to have an audience with cameras.
Back in town, Alex booked his hellish 24 hour bus ticket to Vietnam, Frank and Lauren decided to spend another day in Vang Vieng to see the caves, and Matt, Justin, and I booked our kayak/minibus trip to Vientiane for the next day. We had a massive picture, blog, and information swap before heading out to our last dinner as a group.
Tubing the Namsong in Vang Vieng
The sole reason that many tourists and backpackers on the Southeast Asia circuit stop through Laos is to partake in the infamous river tubing in Vang Vieng. The town itself seems to have sprung up overnight: plywood guesthouses and restaurants with hand painted signs populate the town proper, while across a short bridge there is quiet literally a small island covered from shore to shore in bars. Most people only come to this town to party, and the lack of integrity in most things is a direct result of this. Either way, the town is nothing to write home about, but the tubing is a different story!
The Namsong River flows just a few meters west of town, and about four kilometers north of town is where the tubing begins: the river is lined with bars equipped with ski handle rope swings, zip lines, slides, mud volleyball, beer pong tables… you name it, Namsong has it. Tourists rent tire inner-tubes from a place in town and catch a tuk tuk ride up to the top of the bars and slowly make their way down. We had a slight problem when it came to renting the tubes: the ATM machines hadn’t been working in town, and we didn’t have enough cash to rent two tubes, put down the deposit for both, catch a tuk tuk, and spend the day drinking. So we came up with our own alternative plan. We bought cheap blow up tubes from a kayak shop for a quarter of the price! The best part was we didn’t have a “curfew”: rented tubes had to be back by six sharp or the deposit quickly becomes nonrefundable.
We set off on the river at about 10, with the intention of floating down once and taking in all the bars before actually hitting them on our second run. We had a blast not stopping! When we got to the end point, a handful of little Lao kids wanted rides on our tubes for the last bit and then offered to take our tubes back (a scam) and when we said no they asked for money, which we also said no to!
The second round of floating was absolute madness. Within the two hours we had been gone, hundreds of people had shown up and everyone was already wasted! We started drinking and before you knew it we were swinging over the river and having a blast. There were beers and buckets galore, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible not to have the time of your life. We had heard a few horror stories about people getting injured trying to pull stupid stunts, but all six of us made it in one piece and those who rented even got their deposits back! We met up with our Irish buddies as well who proved to be incredibly entertaining drunks, and the entire day was filled with laughter. There really isn’t a better way to describe it: everyone was laughing all day, and that is always the sign of a great adventure!
The Namsong River flows just a few meters west of town, and about four kilometers north of town is where the tubing begins: the river is lined with bars equipped with ski handle rope swings, zip lines, slides, mud volleyball, beer pong tables… you name it, Namsong has it. Tourists rent tire inner-tubes from a place in town and catch a tuk tuk ride up to the top of the bars and slowly make their way down. We had a slight problem when it came to renting the tubes: the ATM machines hadn’t been working in town, and we didn’t have enough cash to rent two tubes, put down the deposit for both, catch a tuk tuk, and spend the day drinking. So we came up with our own alternative plan. We bought cheap blow up tubes from a kayak shop for a quarter of the price! The best part was we didn’t have a “curfew”: rented tubes had to be back by six sharp or the deposit quickly becomes nonrefundable.
We set off on the river at about 10, with the intention of floating down once and taking in all the bars before actually hitting them on our second run. We had a blast not stopping! When we got to the end point, a handful of little Lao kids wanted rides on our tubes for the last bit and then offered to take our tubes back (a scam) and when we said no they asked for money, which we also said no to!
The second round of floating was absolute madness. Within the two hours we had been gone, hundreds of people had shown up and everyone was already wasted! We started drinking and before you knew it we were swinging over the river and having a blast. There were beers and buckets galore, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible not to have the time of your life. We had heard a few horror stories about people getting injured trying to pull stupid stunts, but all six of us made it in one piece and those who rented even got their deposits back! We met up with our Irish buddies as well who proved to be incredibly entertaining drunks, and the entire day was filled with laughter. There really isn’t a better way to describe it: everyone was laughing all day, and that is always the sign of a great adventure!
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