It's a simple but brilliant idea. You queue up in the morning to hire a tractor innertube, signing a contract written in Laos absolving the rental company of all blame if you sever an artery, drown or simply fail to enjoy yourself. Everyone then piles into the back of a tuk-tuk and is driven 3 miles upstream where swimming cossie's are donned, suncream applied and prayers whispered before plunging in and floating for 6 hours back to town.
The first thing most people do is giggle - it is, after all a ludicrous concept - then there's a moment of calm while first-timers take in the gobsmacking scenery. Turn the second bend in the river though and the dramatic backdrop is quickly forgotten so the real mayhem can begin.
Dotted along the riverbank every 300 metres or so are a series of bamboo lean-to's serving ice cold beers to parched tubers (thirsty work dangling your feet from a rubber ring). Luckily for us, competition among the bar owners is intense and the more astute rig up sound systems, build sundecks and erect complex trapeze style rope swings that make river re-entry an adventure in itself.
Of course there are no brakes on an innertube, so if anyone fancies a beer they just shout at one of the barstaff who fish them ashore with long bamboo poles. Absolute genius.
No rudders either, so steering veers between tricky and non-existent. And at the end of a particularly speedy set of rapids I careered into a bloke who appeared to be sleep-tubing.
"How man, watch what you're doing" shouted Liam in his thick Hartlepool accent. So after buying him and his mate Sticky a beer by way of apology we spent the rest of the day in the company of a daft but highly amusing pair of monkey-hangers. Honestly, you wouldn't think it possible to have so much fun in one day.
Never did find out why Sticky was called Sticky mind.
1 comment:
That looks lush man.
dxxx
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