Everybody going Tubing, Tubing Vang Vieng

While we were on this trip of ours round the world, I knew there were two things that I definitely wanted to do. Scuba Diving in Koh Tao and Tubing in Vang Vieng. Tubing? What is it? Well I had never heard of it this time last year either, Hell I had never heard of it last Christmas. Like the full moon parties on Koh Phang Ngan, the hype about tubing is spreading very quickly around the world. Tubing is renting out an inflatable tube, heading four Km up river, and just floating back down river in your tube. Oh if it was that simple. The river bank on the way home is lined with bars and all of these bars have swings and zip lines which the drunken tubers(let it be known from now on that John Walsh invented the word "Tubers") use to Catapult them selves into the river. Sounds dangerous - it is. Sounds fun - IT IS.

One of the bars and swing on the way down the rive

So we arrived in Vang Vieng in Laos, the tubing capitol of the world. First thing we had to do was find a guest house. After an hour walking through the town in sweltering heat, with bloody heavy backpacks on our (You guessed it) back. We eventually settled on the Riverside Bungalows. These were individual bungalows a little outside town, beside the Mekong River. 8 euros a night, thank you very much.

Tuk Tuk with tubes

Showered and changed we headed into the main street. Vang Vieng is pretty small, made up of about five streets. The main street in Vang Vieng is made up of bars and restaurants and guest houses and they are all showing episodes of friends or family guy for their punters. Its the strangest thing ever. Every place just has these shows on all day and all night. Why? I don't know. I suppose its a bit of home comfort for all the backpackers.

After our food we headed back to our Bungalow for some kip because we were wrecked. I opened the door of the bungalow and switched on the light and I thought I saw something scamper into the bathroom. "OK" I think "It mus be a gecko" (Because they are everywhere) So I head into the bathroom and switch on the light and see the biggest bloody spider I have ever seen in my life. It was HUGE. And it was well built as well. This guy had been working out cause his legs were the size of tree trunks(Ok maybe not tree trunks but they were at least the size of thick twigs) not like these skinny little spiders you see in Ireland which look like an M & M being supported by 8 strands of thread. I decide to do my manly duties and attempt to kill it with my size twelve runners. "Stand back Caroline, there is a spider in here and you DO NOT want to see it" Unfortunately as I lunged for him(A very poor lunge) he scarpered out the bathroom door into the room where Caroline was. She was hysterical. Ill admit I wasn't feeling the best about our 8 euro a night bungalows either. Especially as this tarantula sized spider had legged it under our bed and was probably now planning how it could get me back for trying to kill it with my bloody big runner. After lots of hysterical reasoning outside the bungalow it was decided we would try and just get some sleep in the bungalow and get a new guest house in the morning. And Caroline assured me that the spider wasnt going to go and get twenty of its mates and eat me to death in the middle of the night. I would like to say that we weren't scared shitless, but we were. I would like to say that we didn't sleep with the blankets over our head, but we did. But I, John Walsh, am proud to say that I SLEPT IN THE SAME ROOM AS A SPIDER. (How this bodes for our time in Australia, which has about 35 gazillion million deadly spiders Ill never know, but we'll cross that hurdle when we come to it)

The next day, Sunday 29th June, We were up at the crack of dawn ready to look for a new guest house. We found a decent one in the centre of town and decided there was only one thing that could cheer us up. TUBING. We changed into our swimming gear and headed down to rent our tubes. We then got a tuk tuk with six others to the launch site 4km upstream. We ended up hanging out with these six people for the entire day and had such a laugh. Katie and Aaron from Nottingham, Aoife and Jane from Kilkenny and Stacey and Micheala from New Zealand. Although Caroline isn't the strongest swimmer for some bizarre reason she turned down a life jacket. So as everyone is getting more and more drunk at every bar we stop at on the way down, we decided that getting drunk wasn't the safest thing to be doing. The day was such a laugh and I have never made friends with so many people in one day. I cannot recommend it enough, but if your not a strong swimmer then USE A LIFE JACKET. Fortunately for us our trip down the river passed by with only one incident. As myself and Caroline were floating down the last stretch of the river together, we got to close to the edge and ended up getting hit by an overhanging branch. I got knocked out of my ring but fortunately Caroline managed to stay in hers as. Its the wet season over here so the river is pretty fast flowing and if it pulls you towards the side its pretty hard to fight the current. Still we made it back in one piece(Just about) and all memories of the mutant spider were safely forgotten about.

We did contemplate doing tubing again the next day but decide against it and luckily so. The next day started off with beautiful weather and lovely sunshine, but at around 2 in the afternoon the weather turned and there was thunderstorms and down pours for the rest of the afternoon and night. We spent the day just chilling out watching friends for the day in one of the bars in town.

So that was Vang Vieng. How there hasn't been more accidents with tubing Ill never know but what is for certain is I'll never forget the day I floated down the Mekong River in a tube.

Tuesday 1st July