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Published: January 20th 2006
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From our Front Porch
Sunrise. Time for a pic before running back to the throne. Children travel in these dugouts from across the river to get to school. Some bring their bicycles with them. I woke up in the middle of the night with the runs. Shit!!! I won't be able to go rafting. I took my medication and we repacked the bags just in case I had to stay behind and find my own way to Vientaine the next day. At the last moment, I decided to go rafting. Things seemed to have settled down.
We loaded into a pick-up truck with the box being lined with benches along the sides, a metal frame held up a tarp to protect us from the sun. Our guide had said the company we were to go with cancelled so he set us up with another outfit. Our rafting companions were a deaf German couple and 4 young lads from the Prairies. None of them had been rafting before so we were the experienced ones.
A three hour drive along twisting gravel roads awaited us before reaching our embarkation point. It was much like the "Top of the World" highway in the Yukon, except jungle instead of rocks. My backside and stomach were already tender but the ride seemed to solidify things.
After safety and command drills, we set off lazily down the stream. Our guide and I were in front as the power paddlers. The German couple was behind us and we made them understand that they were to follow our lead when commands were given. Claudette took up the rear with the baggage. The river is borded by karsks blanketed by jungle. An occassional beach was encountered.
We shot a number of class 3 and 4 rapids that afternoon before arriving at our campsite. It is a fishing family's encampment on a flat part of the river. We had stopped a little earlier to gather firewood from the riverbank a few minutes earlier. It had an outhouse, kitchen shelter and a long bamboo platform topped by a thatched roof. It looked like we were all going to sleep together but later in the evening, mosquito netting was installed, dividing the platforminto apartments.
It was gleefully announced that steaks and fries were on the supper menu. Earlier I had looked down from the mats laid out for us to see the skin of a large raccoon-like creature being cooked over an open fire. Could it be........???
The meat was quite tender. Better than some other meat we have eaten so far, including a steak in a classy French restaurant in Vientaine. It was probably water buffalo and not the civet I had seen earlier.
The evening was spent around the campfire which we had previously piled onto the rafts. Five bottles of local whiskey were laid out for our entertainment. The 2 river pilots joined in the fun which consisted of, what else, but drinking games. Caudette taught everyone how to play "Spoons".
We then moved on to a new game. Half a deck of card of cards is balanced on the mouth of a beer bottle. The objective of the game is to, in one breath, blow all but one card off the pile. He who blows off the last card must take a shot of whiskey.
The Lao guides taught us a game called "Mushroom", in which a card is balanced on an up-turned glass. Each player must add a card to the pile. Two corners must not touch the card underneath. If only one corner is not touching, the player must take a shot. If 3 corners are showing, the player designates another to take a shot. If 4 corners, 2 players are designated to drink. Needless to say, the Canadians were trying to get our pilots drunk.
I went to bed as the last bottle was being cracked. The Canadian boys were now drinking beer as chasers for the whisky.
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