Rianna's Ramblings: Asia Part 2

I know I know apologies I was meant to enter it the next day but I really wasnt in the mood. I have started writing tonight so that I can try enter the rest of the trip for you over the next few days.

Soooo where was I in the trip.......hmmm only day 7 shite I have alot to type then dont I?

Ok so still in Luang Prabang. Right so we spent 3 days in this cute little place. Obviously went up the mountian to the temple, went out to waterfalls. I think third day we were there was a free day. This day Lisa and I got a tuk tuk into town and walked around to find a local coffee shop and have a decent coffee for the first time on the trip and YAY they actually had soy milk. I was happy. Then we went into this massage place and got our feet and legs below knees massaged then they painted our nails. Relaxing. Argh but the girl clicked my toes oddest sensation in the world having never had that before. That afternoon we all met up again as a group and went wandering around the markets for some things to buy and just to have a look. All the people in this area are sooo sweet. We ended up down a side street off the markets having a delicious meal at some street stalls where there was fish, pigs heads and other random things. Wandered back to the place we were staying at eventually. What a beautiful place to stay at they were the cutest little villas. That night during sleep we were woken by monks drums at like 3 in the morning or something crazy and dogs going nutty. In the morning we had (as we had every morning) our breakfast brought to us and we sat out on the deck, had delicious toast, juice, banana, dragon fruit:

Which is devine. Mmmm I really want a dragon fruit, banana and mango smoothie mmmm. Tell ya the Loas people are the best fresh fruit smoothie makers in the world! Anyways had breakfast with the kittens of the area. It was utter bliss. This was the morning for us to get going, so we all packed up and then were farewelled by all the staff members of the place called Thong Bay. They gave us each a friendship bracelet and waved to us as the van took off. Talk about sweet :O) Everyone was talking about it for a while how nice to get farewelled like that.
That day we took a 4hr drive through country side to a lunch time stop overlooking the top of mountians. Then it was another 4hr drive down to Vang Veing. We stayed here for 3 days. On these 3 days we settled into the place. Walked around the tiny tiny little township where every pub was playing re-runs of friends. That night we ended up in an Australian Bar for dinner where I had my very first Bucket in Asia. Lisa and I shared one with everyone. Then we got another one ordered, by the time this one came out everyone was connecting straws together and drinking out of the bucket from across the table. We were all rather happy that night. And becuase we had paid for 2 the 3rd bucket was on the house haa haa beaut so 3 buckets in one night. Score.

Lisa and I had the most but we did have others sharing. And becuase we were talking to the bar owner an Australian he sent out some complimentary Kebabs. By this time being that I was onto the 3rd bucket I was ready for some more food, I picked up one of the delicious looking Kebabs and took a large mouthfull of meat, capsicum and onion only to find it was the spiciest thing I have ever had in my entire life. It was like I had eaten the seeds from a chilli. Those that are close to me will know that I pretty much cannot handle my spice at all. Instant sober though haa haa. Out came the sugar on my lips, I squeezed a whole bunch of mayo on me tongue and then proceeded to add more sugar to stop the fire in my mouth. After half an hour I finally had success jeepers creepers it was an intense half hour of not so happy. Poor Sandra did the same thing and lucky followed suit with the sugar. But was a good night of giggles. After it a bunch of us got some delicious banana pancakes from a lady in the street. Lisa and I went on afterwards to purchase some clothes from a store there and eventually went back home. The weather wasnt all the best but for the most part didnt rain. By this point in the trip we were all very used to the rain though and a little bit of it was not going to stop us going outside and having fun.

The next day the majority of us decided to go TUBING!!!! Tubing in Vang Veing is apparently famous, also famous for the young people to do it on all sorts of drugs and drunk to the 9's - not our style. But none the less we all wandered down to the tubing place, ordered our inner tyre tubes and jumped in the back of a truck to make our way to the start point of the tubing ride. We turned up to a boat greeted by one dude dressed like he was from outta space and another guy. They threw our tubes onto the boat and we clamered on with them to cross the other side. Ablsolute characters these two. Anyways get to the other side and as we all we getting off Ash and I were last outta space dude was so caught up with the hot Lisa, not letting go of her hand that I couldnt get off the boat properly one foot on the floating landing and one foot still in the boat and Ash was still at the back. The boat started floating down stream as the two guys were ignoring it and festing their eyes on Lisa. Haa I ended up trying my best to hold onto it with the one leg on the boat but my legs ended up doing too much of the splits for my liking and I had to jump onto the floating landing. Poor Ash who was floating away down stream pretty quickly decided to take some action & jumped from the boat into the water almost floating away down river herself in the process. See the river is very fast (Nam Song River) flowing and if not for the fast thinking of those still on shore we may of lost poor Ash. It was all annoying but seruously funny at the same time. I ended up with a cut on my foot and Ash drenched before we got in the river and possibly multiple bruises. After the drama we proceeded to the first bar where we were given pink wrist bands & a shot. Lisa ordered Ash, herself and I another bucket to have while floating down stream. We all had a bit of a dance to the pumping music then decided it was time to jump in the river. Trevor, Haley, Ash, Amber, Lisa, Jan, Bob, Sandra and myself plonked our arses into the tubes and into the river. Made the decision to stick together as best we could. This didnt work so well as the river was a force to be reckoned with. On the float down other pubs along the way shouted out and tried their best to get us to make our way over to their pubs. To do this they threw ropes with plastic bottles attached. We were meant to grab on and then get pulled in. Only the first bar that threw a rope out didnt happen to be attached to anything. So all we ended up with was a rope to keep the group together. Haa haa. We all ended up managing to get off at the next bar down on the same side. They pulled us up and we all had a beer in the hammocks by the river over looking the stunning surrounding mountain range. After beers were up we played a game of tug o war - Girls Vs Guys. Considering there were only 2 guys stacked against 6 girls it was no surprise that the girls won pulling the boys into the muddy water pit AWESOME! There was also a swimming hole that Lisa and I jumped into with our beers (yes you read right I had a beer it was a Tiger Beer too not bad). This pool thing was really deep I had to stand on my very tip toes to touch the bottom and that was pretty awesome. After this bar and planking on the edge of a very wobbly fance thing we jumped back in the river. So peaceful and relaxing floating along with nature right there.

Ended up getting off at one more bar after that. It was freaking crazy the way the girl got us to her bar too. We are floating along enjoying the ride then we see in the middle of the river ahead of us this girl standing on a rock. She desperately wanted us to come to her bar so when we were like 'we cant make it across you dont have a rope to throw to us to pull us in' this girl jumped INTO the river, letting go of her saftey line and swam to us on our tubes. She then stuggled to swim over to us and not get swept down the river. All the time we are all panicking she will be swept away. She ended up reaching my tube, and because we were all connected started to swim towards land again, her mate who was on shore a young guy ended up also jumping in and helping pull us to shore so that we could go to their bar. Crazy times I tell you. We made it to shore then over to their bar that was pumping with dance music - as they all were and were greeted by a sign 'Ladi Shot For Free' sooo naturally we all decided to have the shot. This bar also had hash brownines and magic mushies for sale. Turns out the people like to be baked when tubing. We stuck around for a dance. Ash and I ventured down to the toilets, when there we decided not to use them but pee in the bushes instead. This resulted in me standing on some sorta floor creepy vine thing that was covered in thorns. Grazed toes - nice lets just stick that in the polluted river and see how well you heal along with the cut on your other foot now shall we? However this is where disaster struck. Poor Sandra didnt clip her camera back to herself properly and ended up losing her camera to the river. Her camera that had all her photos of the first two weeks of the trip on. Poor think was absolutely gutted. Bob decided he would jump into the river and see if he couldnt find it somewhere further down and would met us back at the end. But unfortunately we were faced with the truth that she would never get it back, too deep, too fast flowing, too muddy.

Anyways after having a boogie at that bar and our drinks we jumped back into the river. From there on there were no more bars to go to and it was just a peaceful serene trip the 3k back down the river to the stop. This was utter bliss, we were in fits of giggles the whole time as Ash announced she was peeing in the river while clinging onto everyone else and wanted to know how else was doing so. Turned out the lot of us were. We sang songs down the river, took in the stunning surroundings and chatted away as we flaoted down stream.