There is a 3km long mystical river in Vang Vieng northern Laos that has magic flowing through its currents and sorcery running through its tide.
A few days ago i had one of the best days of my life. In the past the funniest thing i had ever saw was my good friend "Chief" O'Hara, running in an international selection 1500m race, TVs rolling, with a balaclava on his head. He sprinted to the front line after 100m race and was at the bottom of the pack by 200m waving to the crowd and the cameras. From that day on he was banned from ever running again.
Our hat was a tiny little sleepy village that consists no more than two roads interconnecting and a few restaurants, guesthouses and the odd petrol stations to keep the Honda 50s going. After two days of lazing and recovering after traveling myself and companion, Philly Griffin, decided to go on the famous tubing one day event. This consists of renting a black inflatable round tube, being brought 3km upstream away from the village and then literally dumping your ass in the middle of the tube and beginning to float fown the river at a snail pace - and by a snail's pace i mean a snail's pace. It felt as if we're moving at all. As if time had come to a halt.
While on the river we immediately fell under its withcraft and behest. Why? Simple. It was the river of opium, the river of grass and the river of Lao beer. Not to mention a flood of wildlife that went about its daily life as if you never existed.
The journey started with tiny frogs jumping on a mud bath as we tried to clumsily lower our tubes into the water. I still don't their name but there were thousands of them everywhere scampering around as if on some huge hunting spree. They were like tadpoles that had learned to jump prematurely. I gawked and oogled at them for a couple of minutes and then headed down current. We kicked off at 11.05am. 200m down the river and 15 minutes later we arrived at our first bar. Well not really a bar. It was a few bamboos stuck together for a gangway, a small fire in a mud bank and one crate of beer under a tree. The owners of the proud establishment were an old couple in their 70s. After sticking out a 5 metre bamboo and hauling us in they politely gave us a seat at their fire and started to smile at us. After the exchange of a few plesantries we both a beer from them and the old man rolled us a joint. To decline trying it would have been an insult to their hospitality so we took a few puffs. Strong strong stuff. I don't smoke so i basically was coughing my head off for about 5 minuts after trying it. We also had the opportunity to by grade A opium but declined. It was a surreal setting. Two tubes docked on a bit of bamboo, sitting beside a fire, with a beer, and a spifter, at 11am in the morning, trying to converse in Lao to two old people that looked like their next breath would be there last.
After about 20 minutes we set down the river again waving to the lovely couple we left behind. Again, the currents were hardily existant so we didn't move to quick. You have to picture the scenario. When you are sitting in a big tube your legs stick up in the air, your bum hits the water and painfully the odd rock and you can barely get your arms over the rim to touch the water. As such the only thing that has any semblence to a propeller is your two wrists. Not even your arms can get you momentum. As such you can try patter your wrists in the water as your only means of getting yourself into a current to get you down stream. Another 200 metres down the river was the second pub. This time it was manned by a solitary soul that was selling the same wears as the last pub with the added commodity of a visit to a local cave which was a 100m behind the mud bank, over jagged limestone rocks and bamboo bridges. Also on sale were 2 candle packets for a euro. After having the same as the previous establishment we took on the cave in a fit of giggles. It was a massive adventure and I completely felt like Indian Jones seeking out treasure and peril. On more than one occassion Philly shouted at me to be careful and asked if we could abandon the expedition. It was petrifing. At one point we came to a small passage about 40 metres into the cave. We had to descend really really slowly down two tiny ladders to get to it. Both of us weren't sure what the passages footing was made of so we had to stop and have a debate whether we should go on. It looked and kind of felt like quick sand to me, Philly thought it might be deep mud. After cleverly throwing something into it we quickly found out it was neither and was more stone and granite than anything else. It kind of scared both of us and while wanting to go further into the mysterious cave that seemed to have no end we called it a day and headed back to the light, thankful that we had dodged injury or whatever kind of man eating beast resided in there.
After saluting the barman and accepting a helping prod from his long bamboo stick we set off again. This time we went for about 1km. On the way we saw a huge variety of river wildlife, especialy birds. On more than one occasion, as if playing with us, some dove tailed cheeky purple and yellow little nimble warbling feathered friends darted towards us as if they were hell bent on committing wildlife suicide. But just at the final moment they'd always gracefully pulled up and advert disaster by a whisker. Precision flying at its best. As we were under attack, we couldn't but help notice the towering mountains all around us, the hanging trees gently dipping their branches and leafs into the water and a multitude of little rapids and protruberant rocks jutting out of the side and middle of the river like some sort of Kripton factor gauntlet.
About an hour and a half later we came to our final stop. While there were 8 or 9 bars on the river, this was all we could manage for one day. This time instead of old publicans their were two young teenagers as proprietors. The same menu including cave was on offer. There waa no fire but when we pointed to the sun, the grass and made an explosion signal they got the drift and went about quickly making one for us. This was the first bar where their was music. Laos pop music. A bit like the worst possible entry allowed into the Eurovision. But i loved it. Within 10 minutes, after docking the tubes and eating a pack of tasty crisps we were all dancing on the grass banks laughing loudly at i don't know what. We stayed with the boys for about 30 minutes until 15 canoes suddenly came down the river and stopped in the same pub. The boys nearly had heart attacks they had so much business but they managed to handle it.
On the rest of the trip there were many more adventures. A tube flapping race, a drop of rain, some ripcurls, some bashing into rocks and many many weird and wacky experiences. Finally, and unusually, it got to cold at about 4pm and we got out of the river at about 2.5km. We couldn't even get it sorted to finish! We got ourselves a tuck-tuck three-wheel taxi to the crossroads, led down in one of the bars, ordered some water and slept for an hour. Great day.
If you ever get to Laos you got to try the river in Vien Vang. It will spread its magic all over you for the rest of your days.
