Relax, then laugh. Relax some more and laugh again. So goes an afternoon of tubing down the river in Vang Vieng (Laos)
At
the end of the dry season, the Nam Song river runs pretty slow –
sometimes imperceptibly drifting around long wide river bends and
occaisionally quickening it’s pace over some ‘rapids’ ; a foot or two
of bubbling water atop green weedy rocks. Generally unable to control
the pace whilst drifting along in the inner tube, the rapids are the
fun moment that you wait for with anticipation. It’s hours of enforced
chillaxing from the comfort of a bright orange ring – feet in the sun,
bum in the cool clear water.
What inventive, industrious and
adaptable people the Laotians are. All along the river were bamboo
platforms, assembled as rough and ready bars to please the the crazy
tourist crowd. Men squatted next to their home-made eskies in dustbins
housing very cold BeerLao and as we floated past, they’d yell “BeerLao,
BeerLao and Jumping!”. The real entrepreneurs had found corner bends
and big trees over deep parts of the river and assembled a mottley
assortment of swings, jumps and flying foxes. Jumping was free with the
purchase of a large bottle of BeerLao for 10,000 kip, a mere 10 cent
mark up from most of the cafes in town.
Needless to say that
STC was a frequent jumper, exhilarated by the childish thrill of
leaping off tall things into water. Not to mention the cold beer on
demand! “Now I can understand Apocolypse Now a little better”, he says.
“It is possible to have these tiny enclaves of commerce right in the
middle of some untamed jungle”.
Aside from 100 metres of
rice paddies, banana and bamboo plantations that line the river bends,
the rest of the countryside is a series of suddenly vertical karst
limestone that rises up for hundreds of feet from the lush green below
and is pockmarked with crevices and caves. The riverbanks occaisionally
have pebbly beaches along slow bends, but for the most part are
invisible under the cover of weeds and trees.
Sounds idyllic
and tranquil… But just when you think you’re alone, a glance up and
down the river shows 20 brightly coloured tubes in each direction, all
glowing sunset orange in the late afternoon sun. The light is glorious,
the scene ridiculous. Funny enough to laugh out loud at each other and
take stupid pictures. From the inside of the tube, it’s a fantastic
experience. To the local observers, I cannot imagine what they make of
it all.
Some of the young kids are bold and stride through the
stream to grab hold of you when you pass under one of the bamboo
bridges. With a determined little face and fit body, a tiny boy latched
on and started running along the river stones to propell me through the
slow parts. He didn’t speak to me at all – just running and pushing. A
few hundred metres downstream, another older boy joined him and took
hold of the other side of the inner tube. “Hello – what’s your name?”
There was an appropriate exchange and then a question about ages. 6
& 9 years old. Most of the time, the river came up tot he armpits
of the 6 year old as he was so small and I watched his brown skin get
goosebumps the further and further we went. Every now and then as we
passed over a quicker bit, they’d both jump aboard to catch their
breath. Then with one on each edge, 9 would hand 6 one of his blue
rubber flip-flops and they’d both start paddling like mad again.
STC
and I got caught up in this frenzy and started to contribute to the
race with giant backstroke style sweeps of the arm. At some point, he
yells across at me – ” What do they want? Is this a race? ”. We both
laughed and shrugged and kept paddling – it wasn’t clear why our kids
were still hanging on when other tuber’s kids had dropped off along the
way and swum back to the river banks to join their mates. I didn’t
particularly want them to let go either as these two little tackers
were helping get through the slow bits with all their might.
What boldness does it take to hunt down a foreigner and ride them down the river like they’re in some kind of horse race?
In
the end, when STC’s two kids and my 6 & 9 looked up with adrenaline
filled eyes and shyly asked for money, we both laughed and gave them
10,000 kip to split. Sam made it clear to them, they nodded and then
started chattering away at a rate of knots to the oldest boy who was
holding the money.
Other kids we saw didn’t ask for money –
it was just about mucking around on the river and seeing who could win
the race on their human-aqua-beasts. From my backwards facing position
in the tube, I spent half an hour staring straight into the playful
faces of these kids and dreamed about my own adventurous childhood
activities. Modern western parents would have had a heart attack at the
thought… Hell, we just laughed and laughed and laughed!
