I booked my kayaking for the 13th, a days trip down the river Nam Song, we started the day waiting for people in the Mini van, when I was picked up there were going to be 4 people on the trip then we merged with another group to be 11 + 3 guides, so we had 1 Aussie girl, an Argentinean couple, French guy, American couple, Canada guy with his Thai girlfriend, English guy, a Norwegian Girl and 3 Lao Guides and Me, so we had a good covering of Nations.
After everyone had arrived we all piled into the back of the Minivan and headed off, the journey up the road took about 15 minutes and then we arrived at our first stop, Elephant cave and cave tubing. There were a couple of groups ahead of us doing the tubing so we went to the elephant cave first. Not really much of a cave, but our guide did tell us the never ending story. It went on for quite some time, everyone was doing the old leg shuffle by the end. You know where you move from leg to leg, try and stretch a bit, but you don’t want to walk around as that would be rude.
The story was about a bird, and why you should not lie, I could tell you it but the you’d just stop reading so I wont, count your selves lucky. After this it was off to the cave and tubes, the cave is about 200 meters long, it’s fairly open and easy to navigate, we were given these head lamps attached to a motorbike battery for light, they worked well enough but it was a drag with the big battery hanging around my neck.
We boarded our tubes, and headed into the cave, ropes have been slug up for the first 20m then it was paddle power. Have to say the water was pretty cold, There were stalagmites (well which ever hang from the roof, Mites, tities) and some smaller cave off to the side. As we paddled our way deeper into the cave our guide started singing a Lao song, it sounded very beautiful as it echoed through the cave. Quite a horn ting melody. I found out later it was a Lao pop song. Still it added an extra aspect to journey.
It was a there and back again cave, and it was nice when we got back out into the sun, our lunch had been prepared for us while we were in the cave, so we filled ourselves on Fried rice, Kebabs and Bananas. After this it was back to the minivan and down the road a bit for the Kayaking side of the day. After our river briefing it was in the boats and off. This time of year the river is running fairly low so we had to negotiate a few small rapids, I was on a boat with one of the guides so we had no problems. On the first rapid, which really was not much at all, in fact rapid is a overstatement for what it was, still a few of the boats got stuck and one boat flipped over. Had to happen.
With everyone back on their boats and off the rocks we headed off down the scenery is spectacular, and because I was with one of the guides I could relax a bit with my paddling and enjoy the view. We made our way down the river with people having problems at most rapids, I really, come on people it was not that bad. All you had to do was follow the course of the water.
After 30 minutes we began to hear the sound of music off in the distance and after a few more bends we came across it’s source, bars lined the river bank with all types of swings and flying foxes, we paddled passed a few and then pulled in were our guides get commission. We all had a jump of our bars swing. With the swings you climb up a dodgy wooden frame swing out over the river and of cause let go. At full swing height I would say you were maybe 6 meters above the water. It was good fun.
Now have to tell you about the bar, you can get anything you want, from bars and whiskey to all sorts of drugs, I am really amazed more people don’t die here, saying that they have a couple of tourists die each year. Now at this stage I was still planning on riding the next day, so just sat on 1 beer. Soft I know but you really would not want to ride hung over, well I wouldn’t anyway.
A few from our group decided to partake in the Mushroom and Banana Shake, those are the magic mushrooms, so it was going to be a interesting afternoon for them. After a few hours of drinking and chatting we were ushered back onto our kayaks for the final leg of the trip. The youngest of our group who had drunk the most mushroom shake was well gone and the others who had partaken were pretty jovial to.
It took our guides ½ an hour to round everyone up and get the boats back in the water and get us underway, once on the water our progress was fairly slow, we passed lots of people on tubes floating down the river in different states of disorder. It was a pretty funny trip home with conversation talking on whole new dimensions .
Our guide was telling me it takes about 2 hours to float down the river from the last bar to the town of Veng Vieng, it was about 6:30pm by the time we paddled back into town so not sure what time the rest of the people at the bars got back. After the group photo’s we decided to meet up at one of the bars, and because I had not been drinking I had to take change. It became a dictatorship.
We meet up at a bar it town, and I had a beer there and that progressed to another one under pair pressure, and after my third the ride the next day was off. We had a pretty good night with the Argentinean couple teaching me how to salsa. Good night but was feeling a little under the weather this morning. Not up to much so it does not really matter.
On another note I have a sore tooth, will have to see how it goes if it gets worse may have to do a run to Bangkok and a dentist, time will tell.
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