"Happy" Valentines Day 2011

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well.....i'm not really sure where to even begin with this entry! life has all of a sudden gone a bit mental and I'm not really sure how it happened!.... it started fine, when we were in Chiang Rai getting drunk with a stoned tatooist before then deciding to hire pedal bikes from him and cycle 20 miles down a road not disimilar to the A27 so we could see a white temple, with bikes with 1 gear and wonky wheels...... so I can only assume it started going wrong when we left Thailand for Laos.....
oh wait... before leaving Thailand I met 2 girls at the cash machine.....

we left Thailand on the oldest, rusty bus you can imagine, the kind that chickens roam around freely and your luggage is balanced on the roof! The journey was ridiculously bumpy and made worse by the fact the back of my seat was broken! The border crossing was pretty basic, just a hut really. So we jumped onto the small boat and made our way over the river to Laos. Unfortunately not realising until we got to Laos that we actually needed an exit visa from Thailand.... so stingray went back to thailand and I stayed in Laos.

On arriving in Laos we met a few people - Ann (who was from Brighton) 2 Canadians Dan & Kat (from canada) and this guy Matthew (from another planet). The first 3 are lovely and we had a great (and extremely eventful) time with them, Matthew was..... odd... (he actuallly offered to pay me and sting to stay in a different hotel one night so he could share a room with ann (who wasn't so keen on this idea!)....obviously we declined and at this point realised he was really very weird!!

due to my relationship with mosquitos I've been taking my malaria tablets for ages and touch wood have had no side effects, thank god! because when I went to the doctor she did tell me a side effect could be thrush which I was obviously freaked out about! So I bought some probiotics to help reduce the chances and have been taking them every day..... stingray however has not been.....

We decided to get a long boat down through Laos to Luang Prebang - it was a 2 day boat journey and obviously started with a few beers with our new friends... It ended with sting and I making up our own language (so we could communicate with each other without anyone realising what we were saying - it's called "skat-ing" and has entirely new words - Wan Pol Hom - is our personal favourite and simply means "i like girl" we don't have any tenses or anything fancy in our language tho.....
I also felt the need to show a german girl how good I am at German ( it was a short conversation which basically consisted of me asking her how many brothers she had (two), if she had a cat (she doesn't) and when her birthday was (i've forgotten)

me sting dan kat and ann (matthew stayed in feeling very grumpy) went out that night to the only bar in the town and had a few drinks - I requested Justin Bieber (for the Canadians) and then had to dance with the thai barmaid when she put it on...

I'm not really sure why but I was then offered something horrfic from the locals sitting outside the bar, it was one of those awkward situations where you don't want to offend people by saying no, but you also think you might vomit or die if you eat it..... so I ate it.... I think it was chicken brain or human, I'm hoping for the first... Some american guy also bought me a hat from a drug dealer.... again I'm not really sure why...
i'm not really sure what time we went back - it wasn't late as everywhere closes early. Sting had a spliff on the balcony and puked and then the 3 of us went to bed!!

Day two of the boat trip felt pretty bad really! Matthew apologized for his behaviour by saying he was "stressed out by the disembarktation" .....I dont even know what that means!! But I think it's along the lines of, he was stressed out about getting off the boat and so acted like a dick...odd!... On arriving in Luang Prebang we decided to get rooms together again... when we were waiting in our hotel the 2 girls from the cash machine arrived thinking it was their hotel too.... it wasn't..... Luang Prebang is really nice, the market there is probably the best I've seen and the place seems to have a nice feel about it... On our first day there we went to a waterfall which was amazing - like something out of a movie it was so blue. Everyone jumped in except for me and Kat who stood at the top of the waterfall for a good 15 mins (so long that my camera battery actually died) then Kat promise that if I jumped in she'd follow.... I did... she didnt....

The next day we went Kayakking - matthew had already said he couldn't afford to go - THANK GOD! by this point he was doing everyones head in and we all were majorly fed up with him. So we went to book it and bartered them down.... then in his horrifically quiet voice matthew said that he might come..... we ignored him.... having booked the kayakking (without matthew) he then had a go at sting for not booking him a place, ironically sting was the only one who hadn't heard him say it! He basically said to her that he thought "she was a nice girl but we just don't get on" ....prick..... so he decided to check out of the hotel leaving just the 5 of us - brilliant!

we went kayakking the next day - I think I may be the worst ever person to be in a kayak with! I have no upper body strength what so ever and at one point sting actually said "I think i find it easier if you don't row".... we rowed (well sting did) to some caves then we went to a rice whiskey village... on arriving in the whiskey village we were greeted by a group of 10-15 boys all under 10... who decided to come and jump on our canoe, at first I thought this was great and even helped a boy get into the canoe - before realising he was actually naked........ then we capsized in the middle of the river! .... we went to the whiskey village and tried ridiculous ammounts of horrific whiskey - sting and dan bought some 50% stuff which was gross!!

we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and go out..... when matthew returned.... basically asking to share a room with dan and kat again! which being the nice people they are they felt like they couldn't say no!.... so I went and told him to leave... I was pretty annoyed with what he'd said to sting as it had made her feel uncomfortable and to be honest I was sick of him.... (yes I know I'm a bitch!!).... but I said it in a nice way!

we bumped into the girls from the cash machine again - and arranged to share a bus with them to Vang Vieng, they seemed nice enough and being in a big group is always cheaper....
our last day in Luang Prebang was spent hiring bikes (pedal) we cycled around for most of the day then headed back to the hotel to drink our whiskey before dropping the bikes off... Kat wasn't feeling too well, so dan said he'd take her bike back for her, but after a few whiskeys he was struggling to ride his own bike....

So I took Kats bike - fucking hell!! Riding a bike through a night market... whilst holding another.. having been drinking whiskey all day is not easy!! thankfully I only nearly crashed once and that was into some French people - I know they were french because as I swerved they said "ooo la la" ....we ended up driving right past the bike shop....and only found our way when a smalll group of local children chased us and escorted us back! After dropping the bikes off we went out for a few more drinks before our bus journey the next day...

feeling worse for wear we got our mini bus to Vang Vieng with the 2 cash machine girls emma and dee. the journey was pretty bad, at one point it was so foggy we couldn't see more than 5 metres in front of us - which when your going through the hills on shit roads is pretty scary!!... the journey was made all the more worse when stingray spilt the rest of the rice whiskey in her bag - stinking out the whole bus and making everyone feel majorly ill!!..... god knows what our new friends thought of us!!

THEN WE ARRIVED IN VANG VIENG......
vang vieng is basically famous for one thing - tubing. The act of sitting in a rubber ring and floating down the river then being grabbed into various bars on the way!.... we arrived on Valentines Day and the 7 of us... me sting dan kat ann dee and emma got rooms in the same hotel... sting and I shared with Ann...
as a special valentines day treat we decided to get some happy shakes.... basically weed mixed into a shake.... as neither of us had really done this before, Kat and I shared one... Kat was hilarious! I was fine and the others were all various degrees of wasted! then..... we got another round.... kat then started freaking out whilst also laughing hysterically!.... then Ann started freaking out and thinking sting had a beard, which she didnt.... then I thought that I could get freaked out so me and Emma left... we sat on the hotel balcony, where I was actually fine, just pretty chilled out. then ann and sting came back and ann decided to share her deepest darkest fears! which majorly freaked out emma to the point she had to leave and go to bed!!
.... now the next part of the night is just a little bit mental! Ann had to go to bed so sting took her and I stayed on the balcony on my own wondering how Valentines Day 2011 had ended with everyone off their faces by 8.30pm! I stayed up a while then went to bed.... to find.... Sting and Ann in bed together! Baring in mind Ann is straight this was a little bit suprising for both me and sting!!! ... so sting and I went outside and discussed the situation and basically Ann had confessed to really liking sting and was pretty keen on sleeping with her!...sting promised nothing would happen while I was there and so I agreed to sleep in the single bed....
clearly happy shakes make people mental because Ann then continued to tell sting how much she liked her, how she'd never liked girls before etc seemingly unaware that I was in the room! .... it wasn't until they started kissing that I actually left!! I went down to the reception and asked if they had a spare room - they didn't... but then by using my sign language skills I made them understand what was going on in my room and thankfully they took pity on me and gave me another room!!
The following morning everyone was feeling pretty delicate... Thankfully it was fine with sting and Ann the next day.... we were due to go tubing but given our condition we thought we'd leave it for another day.... so we just sat in a few bars (which for some reason all show friends continuously on loop!!) and got drunk pretty easily! partly down to the fact the happy shakes refused to go away and we all spent the day feeling really stoned!
now.... if life wasn't already a bit odd.... yesterday was very very odd....
ann had to leave so she could get her flights to Australia..... so it was just dan kat sting and me for tubing - .... the other two Dee and Emma seemed to be distancing themselves from us after the happy shake ordeal!

Sting and I had spent most of the morning in agony having seemingly picked up a stomach bug so I dont think any of us were reallly in the mood for tubing, but that all changed after a few whiskey buckets and water slides and so by the time we hit the 6th bar we were all feeling pretty good!! sting and I jumped off a zip wire into the river (apparently I am a daredevil in Laos!!)... Though getting in and out of the tube was interesting! and I managed to fall in on more than one occaision .... we bumped into dee and emma who were with some other friends - but then emma stayed with us and we got a tuk tuk back to town.... we went straight out drinking and ended up stealing some buckets off some irish girls (who hadn't realised tht when you ordered food in this bar you also got a free bucket - we did realise this and took full advantage!) Obviously I couldn't help but tell the Irish girls about my favourite band....... I do believe at one point I was dancing with a strange man on a table while don't stop beliving played (while telling him about my friend jenwade!!)!... I also spent quite a lot of the night chatting to emma (about god knows what)... I feel bad for doing this because I think i was partly to blame for what happened next..... I turned round having neglected stingray.... to find her eating the face off a man - I obviously found this hilarious!!.... and suggested they go home together...

we went to another bar and I dont really remember what happened there, but Emma and I left and went somewhere else.....and again....im not really sure exactly how this happened but I slept with her on the balcony of our hotel (sorry mum) with 2 middle aged russians about 4 metres away (this was not some odd 4some - they we're on their laptops and wouldn't leave!!)..... which considering she's also "straight" makes you wonder what the hell is going on in the world!...

today emma and dee left to go further south..... and dan and kat left as well because Kat has been really ill so wants to go to a decent hospital.... hopefully we'll see them again one day.....

so now we're back to 2....slighty worse for wear, slightly confused but pretty damn happy....

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