Our last day in Luang Prabang ended up turning into quite a long one. We thought we`d take a trip to the other set of waterfalls, so as you do, you call down a tuc tuc, argue about the price for a while, then set off on your way.
We`d been told about doing this tree top zip lining thing back in town and seeing as it wasn`t very expensive decided to give it a go. Plus Will is petrified of heights so it promised to be highly entertaining no matter what. Some of the distances where pretty epic actually, one of the 20+ lines was a mammoth 200 meters and at a pretty good height as well. Will predictably had a little panic but by the end everyone had a good laugh with it.
This is where things start to go slightly wrong and as usual it started with a drink! That turned into 2 and that developed onto drinking games. I`ve got to explain that Luang Prabang entirely shuts down after 11, every bar, every restaurant, everywhere except the bowling alley. There you can drink till whenever as long as you`re bowling! We got a lane then a shot of absinthe then, well.. to be honest facebook may be a better reference as my memory certainly isn`t. I remember my flip flops being devastatingly slippy and being dragged around the floor by many people but that`s about it. I don`t know if i won, lost or if i hit any pins at all.
Bearing in mind we were off to Bangkok in the morning i can now safely say that this wasn`t the greatest idea i`ve ever had. I think it was 4 or 5 when we got in, we jumped into a our double bed (all three of us sharing the same bed at this point to keep costs down) and at half 5 (not long enough of a sleep to declare it a new day) Lauren woke us up as our tuc tuc driver was outside and waiting to take us to the bus station.
The bus was a nine hour journey and to be fair the most unpleasant one since, well...ever. At one point 2 drunks got on board and took the 2 seats behind me. They reeked of the same rice wine whiskey that had almost taken my life in Beijing. That alone would of been enough to have me wrenching but they were also eating eggs. Not hard boiled or anything, just eggs. He had it smeared all over his face and hands and at one point tried wiping it on the back of my seat. After a few hours the inevitable happened. All over the back of my seat and floor. It smelt worse than they did. This also made the next god knows how many hours go by so slowly. By he time we arrived in Vientiane it was just a relief to escape the smell.
This next bit is a tad dull so i`ll spare you the details, but essentially it went: taxi to the border, through one checkpoint, a bus to the next border checkpoint, a tuk tuk to Nong Kai train station, then the purchasing of a ticket to Bangkok. Which to add to our extremly bad moods where told they had no seats so the only option was the floor. We`d been awake for 2 days now, the idea of sitting on a floor for 13 hours didn`t go down well at all. We stood and talked about what to do until the guy at the desk informed us of 3 cancellations and therefore space for us, which we took admittedly (hard seats mind) and after 4 hours in the idea of the floor was quite an attractive proposition, at least then you could ly down. These things are impossible to sleep on you see and meant all that was left to do was drink whiskey with our newly acquired Thai friends.
On our third day now and man i was grumpy, apart from the time spent eating cake at Bangkok train station which temporarily lifted my mood, i was seeing red, i had ichy feet a banging headache, sleep deprivation and a doubled up hangover.
After another 30min public bus ride to Koh San rd i`d had enough, i got off the bus, walked into the nearest hotel and checked in. I said we`d switch to something better the next day but you know you probably won`t when you say that, and then crashed on our hotels unique beds, unique as in the fact it was a mattress that was made to be less comfy than if they`d just stuck a large rock in the room for you to ly on. We laid there for a while until Will uttered the line he most often does "fancy a drink then?" "you know what, yes i do" "nice one, lets go!"
1 comments:
Hi Richard, you are going to find New Zealand very quiet and very boring after all this. Sounds like you need a bit of R & R. Will friends be coming with you?
We are looking forward to March, Ann xxx
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