Birthday Bumps!!!

Its 8am the morning after my birthday, the reason i am awake is because yesterday i went tubing and the pain i feel today is keeping me from sleeping! So here i am going to tell you all about a great day yesterday!

Remember Sebastian from the south of Viet Nam and our conincidental travel/ birthday plans, well we kept to the plan and met in Vientiane. They (Thomas included) had a bad journey too over the border but at least arrived on the same bus. Anyway we are not in Vientiane like this blog says, we are in fact in Vang Vieng about 3 hours north by the river.

16th March- Brian (23)/Sebastian (25) 's Birthday celebrations...

About midday we started at the top of the river, armed with some dollars, a lorry Tyre inner tube and adrenalin! Basically the river has about 5 main bars at the top and each haul you in using bamboo rods. When at the bar you can;
a. buy bar drinks! or,
b. go on the large rope swings

So the day was pretty much spent getting wet and getting wet in style. There are two main types of swing; one is just a rope with handrail attached and the other is a handrail ripslide which ends when you hit a stopper at some point on the line.

The first enables you to be creative and do stupid things. The last one is a stupid thing but very creative! Basically if you hold on when you hit the bumper it sends you into an uncontrollable serious of overhead spins, from 3 metres or upwards! Quality!

The best part is that pretty much everybody on the river at that time of day joined up as a large group. While relaxing at one fo the big swings Sebastian and me had the crazy idea of a joint birthday swing, so here is the picture of us enjoying our birthday! At the top of the swing we also met 2 Danish guys, as they said Happy Birthday before the jump we shook hands. One was number 23 and the other 25, conincidence???? :) We swapped numbers at the bottom but we had to wear our change in marker pen on our backs for the rest of the day and today by the looks!

The evening was chilled, some beers and a large following from the tubing plus more arrivals, we all went to a bar on the little island. We stayed until the undercover and then 'out of cover' police arrived! Then we left, some quicker than others but all without problems. The walk home is only 5 mins but somehow it took 2 hours and we were again introduced to the local police but again very orderly!

What a birthday, it was great and enjoyable to spend with someone else especially when the idea was concieved in Saigon a month ago! As for Vang Vieng, well my laundry is done (birthday treat!) and it reminds me of the Aztec Zone in the Crystal Maze!!!

23 hey...!

Vientiane, Laos