A Great Day of Many Mistakes

I was planning on spending my last day in Vang Vieng touring around on a bike and trying to see as many of the caves as possible. Instead I was talked into tubing. But this time with a tube.

Today was an amazing day but non the less, a day of many mistakes in which I have to suffer the consequences. My first mistake happened as soon as I got the tube. I should have known better than to rent one. Instead you just take from a bar because you never have your own tube for the entire day let along one stop. The second of the early mistakes was jumping off the 40ft rope swing with my favorite bandanna. It came right off upon hitting the water and was sucking into the murky river current and never seen again. The third and most crucial mistake was starting my day with Tiger whiskey shots and a bucket. Next I cut my foot along my big toe and pinky toe jumping out of the water to drag my friend off the dock fully clothed. I didn't notice the gash until I stepped in booze.

After, I made my first few stops at the bars which I knew where my friends were working and I also made a point to stop at each bar and see their main attraction. Since you cant really steer the tube, staff from each bar throw ropes with a buoy at the end out to you and reel you in. I wasn't entirely coherent and ended up getting hit in the face with a buoy. This shattered my clear Oakley Frogskins and those two disappeared into the depths of the Nam Som River.

Soon after that episode, I met up with some other friends and branched off with them for the remainder of the ride. The last mistake, which actually wasn't that bad, was not getting off at the proper stop where a tuk tuk service can shuttle you back to the town. We ended up staying on the river for an extra hour. As we approached the town it gets tricky to figure out where to get off. Fortunately, there are lots of little Loa kids standing in the water waiting to safely taxi you and your tube back to the proper shore. So instead of paying 15,000 Kip each for a tuk tuk, we split 3,000 Kip for little Loa kids to tug us to shore. So this ended up being a blessing in disguise because we got to watch the sunset on the river and didn't have to pay for the shuttle.

The night was especially fun because I again got free drinks all night and everyone wanted to give me a solid send off. After all the bars closed we went back to our guesthouse and by 5am everyone was passing out on each other.