To kill the rest of the day before leaving for Vang Vieng, B won a bet so we took in that (in my opinion) over the top "love story", Twilight film. In fairness, If a bloke acted like that with any of you wimmin' you'd have a restraining order on them. Anyway, Vang Vieng.....
So we leave Chiang Mai about 5pm, it's our favorite little buses that sit 14 people, but no one inside. Were we the luckiest people in South East Asia?
Before we can start to plan our wonderful space, leg room and sleep patterns, it's quashed when the bus drives 2 minutes up the road and fills it in one go. Shiza. Well, it can't be too bad because after 30 minutes we stop to change bus, ahhhh a bigger bus, nicely.
Nah, same size bus, so now we're just being hassled into moving all our stuff from one to another. The most pointless exercise I've partaken in since Algebra. It's the stand out journey of the now 10 months or so I've been away (so far) it was atrocious. I'll try picture it for you. 14 of us with all our luggage absolutely squashed in together, my legs are numb from lack of circulation and I've a creak in my neck. I'm trying to sleep but every time I nod off even a little it's like the driver is an evil goblin cackling away as he pulls into a petrol station, every single time he sees one, turns on the lights and opens the doors. Everyone is proper bulling. We don't even attempt to talk to anyone, well except the American girl who had her jewelry stolen from her bag. jewelry. stolen. backpacking. Christ they don't do themselves any favors, do they?
13 or so hours of literal hell is followed by a brief release when we hit the border. I have never been so happy in my life. There's a couple of people standing around who we get chatting to before the next bus comes along. It's a 52 seated bus. I'm welling up with excitement. On the bus we get chatting away, there's 2 Danish fellas Simon and Martin, they shall be known from here on out as the "Vikings". Martin was a fucking nutcase. More about them guys later.... next, enter The Jock, or, Mark from Edinburgh, Thor the lightning God, from Colorado and Andrew, who for me not only sounded like Stephen Merchant but was actually as funny if not funnier than him. This group so far is looking well.
20 minutes to sort out for visas turns into roughly 90 minutes when they mix up the dates on every ones passports after already stamping them. Ahhh Laos an hour in and you remind me of the Philippines as the saying here is apparently "you'll get there, on Laos time". Never a truer word spoken.
Back on the road and into Vientiane's main street for a pick up. Here we get another bunch of characters. Two South African beauties named Alex and Bianca, a Scottish lassie named Nicky and a pair of Scousers, Graham and Laura. The team is looking shit hot right now.
Now, if you thought the first leg of the journey was bad... you would be wrong, it was worse than bad, it was poison, but this next few hours were going to be a right experience.....
1) We hit a puppy.
2) We knocked a woman off her motorbike, who typically, had her small child on it with her. Helmets? Nahhhh.
3) We smacked into the back of a jeep or the side of a jeep, I was too busy consoling Nicky and B. (By consoling I was telling them the seat belts weren't there for protection, but to identify our bodies easier.)
4) We burned out the engine. The next 2-3 hours we were sitting on the bus while the driver and 2 lads who had just appeared decided to pour water on it to cool it down. In fairness looking back, it was good as it helped us all get to know each other better. At the time, I was gumming for a beer. Right, engine sorted, let's go....
Even when we arrive in Vang Vieng, we're not where we want to be, so we need tuk tuks. Will this bloody journey ever end?
Yes. We're here. Holy shitballs, this place looks like the wild wild west. All it's missing is saloon doors and thumbleweed. Oh there's thumbleweed, it's just the saloon doors so.
"The Other side bungalows" is where we were staying after a 10 minute look around. Cheap as you like, free whiskey. Yerrrah. Its 5pm by the time we get our stuff sorted. That's 24 hours traveling on the nose. 8 hours my arse.
Everyone gets showered and sorted and we meet back up to go for food. Everyone is getting on swimmingly and we decide the beer is ok, but after that journey, something a little bit stronger wouldn't go amiss.
Q-bar looks decent so we go there. There we see everyone arriving back from tubing, off their minds. Glow paint, head bands, no shoes is the dress code here it seems. But there is one item that I instantly fall in love with.
Everyone is drinking from buckets... (yes this is where the blog title comes from....) Before I know it I'm drinking 2 at a time (this is a regular happening from here on out) The buckets can have whatever you want in them, I've gone with standard Sang Som whiskey and sprite with a delicious ingredient known as M150. Little did I know the stuff is illegal and fucks big time with your head. I like to compare it to if Red Bull done an amphetamine flavor. 2 per day is the warning apparently, not 2 per round, which is what I was doing.
You know it's going to end badly, but how badly is the question?
And we haven't even done one day of tubing yet.
Next is Tubing and all that goes with it, including severed fingers and severed legs and severed minds.
Until next time.
I want to just say congrats to my best mate Moggy and his lovely wife as they're getting married tomorrow morning. The buckets are on me.
So we leave Chiang Mai about 5pm, it's our favorite little buses that sit 14 people, but no one inside. Were we the luckiest people in South East Asia?
Before we can start to plan our wonderful space, leg room and sleep patterns, it's quashed when the bus drives 2 minutes up the road and fills it in one go. Shiza. Well, it can't be too bad because after 30 minutes we stop to change bus, ahhhh a bigger bus, nicely.
Nah, same size bus, so now we're just being hassled into moving all our stuff from one to another. The most pointless exercise I've partaken in since Algebra. It's the stand out journey of the now 10 months or so I've been away (so far) it was atrocious. I'll try picture it for you. 14 of us with all our luggage absolutely squashed in together, my legs are numb from lack of circulation and I've a creak in my neck. I'm trying to sleep but every time I nod off even a little it's like the driver is an evil goblin cackling away as he pulls into a petrol station, every single time he sees one, turns on the lights and opens the doors. Everyone is proper bulling. We don't even attempt to talk to anyone, well except the American girl who had her jewelry stolen from her bag. jewelry. stolen. backpacking. Christ they don't do themselves any favors, do they?
13 or so hours of literal hell is followed by a brief release when we hit the border. I have never been so happy in my life. There's a couple of people standing around who we get chatting to before the next bus comes along. It's a 52 seated bus. I'm welling up with excitement. On the bus we get chatting away, there's 2 Danish fellas Simon and Martin, they shall be known from here on out as the "Vikings". Martin was a fucking nutcase. More about them guys later.... next, enter The Jock, or, Mark from Edinburgh, Thor the lightning God, from Colorado and Andrew, who for me not only sounded like Stephen Merchant but was actually as funny if not funnier than him. This group so far is looking well.
20 minutes to sort out for visas turns into roughly 90 minutes when they mix up the dates on every ones passports after already stamping them. Ahhh Laos an hour in and you remind me of the Philippines as the saying here is apparently "you'll get there, on Laos time". Never a truer word spoken.
Back on the road and into Vientiane's main street for a pick up. Here we get another bunch of characters. Two South African beauties named Alex and Bianca, a Scottish lassie named Nicky and a pair of Scousers, Graham and Laura. The team is looking shit hot right now.
Now, if you thought the first leg of the journey was bad... you would be wrong, it was worse than bad, it was poison, but this next few hours were going to be a right experience.....
1) We hit a puppy.
2) We knocked a woman off her motorbike, who typically, had her small child on it with her. Helmets? Nahhhh.
3) We smacked into the back of a jeep or the side of a jeep, I was too busy consoling Nicky and B. (By consoling I was telling them the seat belts weren't there for protection, but to identify our bodies easier.)
4) We burned out the engine. The next 2-3 hours we were sitting on the bus while the driver and 2 lads who had just appeared decided to pour water on it to cool it down. In fairness looking back, it was good as it helped us all get to know each other better. At the time, I was gumming for a beer. Right, engine sorted, let's go....
Even when we arrive in Vang Vieng, we're not where we want to be, so we need tuk tuks. Will this bloody journey ever end?
Yes. We're here. Holy shitballs, this place looks like the wild wild west. All it's missing is saloon doors and thumbleweed. Oh there's thumbleweed, it's just the saloon doors so.
"The Other side bungalows" is where we were staying after a 10 minute look around. Cheap as you like, free whiskey. Yerrrah. Its 5pm by the time we get our stuff sorted. That's 24 hours traveling on the nose. 8 hours my arse.
Everyone gets showered and sorted and we meet back up to go for food. Everyone is getting on swimmingly and we decide the beer is ok, but after that journey, something a little bit stronger wouldn't go amiss.
Q-bar looks decent so we go there. There we see everyone arriving back from tubing, off their minds. Glow paint, head bands, no shoes is the dress code here it seems. But there is one item that I instantly fall in love with.
Everyone is drinking from buckets... (yes this is where the blog title comes from....) Before I know it I'm drinking 2 at a time (this is a regular happening from here on out) The buckets can have whatever you want in them, I've gone with standard Sang Som whiskey and sprite with a delicious ingredient known as M150. Little did I know the stuff is illegal and fucks big time with your head. I like to compare it to if Red Bull done an amphetamine flavor. 2 per day is the warning apparently, not 2 per round, which is what I was doing.
You know it's going to end badly, but how badly is the question?
And we haven't even done one day of tubing yet.
Next is Tubing and all that goes with it, including severed fingers and severed legs and severed minds.
Until next time.
I want to just say congrats to my best mate Moggy and his lovely wife as they're getting married tomorrow morning. The buckets are on me.
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