Fallopian Tubing

Monday 31st January

Having survived the onslaught of our bus journey we arrived in Luang Prabang to discover we wouldnt be able to check into our room until 12:00 and as it had just passed 05:30 it meant that we had a fair amount of time to kick about on the streets.

For some reason though the streets were already jammed with people ambling along the main road, apparently in anticipation of the daily Alms ceremony that would be taking place at around 07:30.

At precisely 07:30 an orange swarm of locusts decended upon the town in the form of hundreds of monks, bowls in hand, sweeping through the mass of tourists to collect their daily intake of sticky rice and bananas.

It looked like an audition for the latest Tango advert and we were half expecting them to double slap us as they sauntered passed or at the very least plant a big sloppy kiss on our unsuspecting faces.

I started to feel very sorry for them as they trotted past, not because they live a life of quiet reflective sollitude, but because the food that we had provided them had come directly from Tylers own hands, hands which to my knowledge had not been cleaned since we left Chang Mai.

I cant help but wonder if there was a sudden orange rush to talk to god on the big white telephone later that evening and perhaps there would be a few less monks for tomorrow mornings ritual.

When we finally managed to check into our room, having walked the street from top to bottom numerous times, we instantly fell into a deep sleep, which for me lasted all of 35 minutes until someone knocked on our door by accident.

I left Tyler and Pauline snoring heavily, ignoring the urge to accidently make loud noises or shake them uncontrolably, I grabbed my book and headed off to the river banks for some of my own quiet reflective sollitude.

Having had enough of being eaten by the local insects for a couple of hours, I finally caved in to the urge and headed back to our room to throw open the curtains, switch on the TV and jump on the bed.

I seem to have perfected the ability to look completely innocent and nonchalant in these situations but even I stuggled not to feel a little guilty when they both drearily dragged their arses out of bed, especially when I commandeered their warm space and instantly fell back to sleep.

The following day we headed out to the Kuang si waterfalls, an idealic multi tiered waterfall set in an area of natural beauty, replete with crystal clear water, carefully manacured landscapes and idiotic tourists narrowly avoiding death on rope swings and cliff diving.

The water was a little cooler than your average refrigerator but this did little to deter the mass of tourists from braving them in order to obtain their place in darwins annual stupidity awards.

As per usual Tyler took all of 3 seconds to jump in and was instantly transformed into a living popsicle, his skin taking on the natural hue of the surrounding waters to the point where it looked as though his red tshirt was levitating on its own.

Also as per usual he was bored within a few minutes and spent the next 10 trying to cooerce me into plunging off of one of the cliffs into the merky depths below, which I can assure you that only a fool would contemplate.

As it turns out I fall neatly into this catagory and whilst it took a little while to drum up the courage for that first leap, the remainder of our day was spent either jumping, swimming back to shore or climbing back up to the cliff to do it all again.

The following morning we jumped onboard yet another bus headed to Vang Vieng a place notorious for its party scene and tubing exploits, which obvioulsy meant that an 8 year old and his ancient parents would fit in seamlessly yet again.

We had booked a room in advance but when we arrived we were told it wasnt available which was a bit of a bummer, luckily though the guy had another guesthouse and 2 seconds later I was straddled onto the back of his moped whizzing through the dirt tracks of Vang Vieng to view the room.

After a cursory glance and a quick nod in his general direction he promptly shot off leaving me stranded on the porch without any luggage or in fact other family members.

A few minutes later a moped pulled around the corner, it seemed to have been driven by a large suitcase and two giant backpacks, however on closer inspecation there was a small Laos man buried within the depths.

God only knows how he managed to get there in one piece, but having seen this I started to have grave doubts about ever seeing my family again, which forced me to contemplate the unthinkable prospect of going out in town and enjoying the party scene.

Luckiy for my liver, a few minutes later yet another bike careered around the corner, this time driven by none other than Tyler, who for all intents and purposes appeared to be giving the hotel manager a saddle.

Finally having once again contemplated trying to fake an ID for Tyler and go out partying, Pauline appeared on yet another bike and our party was once again complete.

I would hate to think how long this process would take for a larger group of people but the locals seemed more than happy to continue this all day and when you are staying in somewhere as classy as we were (£7 per night) that came as somewhat of a surprise.

Beofre arriving I had read that tubing is the main money spinner for the town, however it is also very dangerous, apparently so far this year two people have died and we are only in January.

So naturally the first thing we did upon arrival was find out how we could go about doing it ourselves to see what all the fuss was about.

Thats how we found ourselves on a tuk tuk at 09:00 the next morning, giant inflateable ring in hand, enroute to the start point of our rapid decent down the river.

Before you go accusing me of being a neglectful parent (a point which by now you have probably already gathered) I can assure you that the tubing aspect of this is quite safe, it is however the alcohol fuelled escapades on rope swings and zip lines that prove to be most peoples undoing.

Apparently there can be upto 500 tubes on the river on any given day and it gives you a deep appreciation of what it feels like to be a sperm, galantly fending off others through a series of complex paddling, pushing and distracting in order to be the first to reach your goal.

As you float down the river pubs on either bank will continually throw rings out to you in order to pull you into their domain and top up your inhebriated state to the point where shooting down a zip line into shallow water seems like a great idea.

Its not hard to see how there are so many accidents during the course of a year, practically everything is designed to knock you off in some way or another.

Firstly there is the water itself, a shimmering shade of dark brown which contains unknown quantaties of nasty organisms lying in wait for a fat arse to bite into, then there are the numerous bars plying you with all types of strange flourescent substances, finally there are the death defying (or in some cases not) swings that have been sensibly set up over sharp rocks and mostly shallow water.

Its a wonder how they get any repeat business at all, but I for one would be back in an instant, we had a great time and although we werent drinking we still got to watch as others risked their lives for our selfish enjoyment.

As it had been such a long time since we had been on a bus (2 days but this is a whistle stop tour of Laos after all) we are now headed to Veintiane possibly our final destination within Loas before shooting back to Bangkok to catch our flight on the 4th.