Elephants, tubing and temples with the parentals

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Lets try a bit of a catch up to where I left the parents.

So in Luang Prabang, we stayed a day or two more than most slow boaters, and did a bit extra. Dad and I rented a motorbike (more like a scooter really) and tore up the countryside on it. We also did a "night as a Mahoot" trip, where we had an elephant each- went for a splash with them, took them into the jungle and tied them up with a 30 metre long chain for the night. The next day when we collected them the clever little beasts (little meant in the affectionate rather than literal sense) had managed to maximise their feeding zone by retracing their steps every time and prevent any tangling around any trunks or bamboo. I think knowing Dad and my eating habits when absolutely ravenous like the elephants, if we were chained for our evening meal, we would quickly wrap ourselves around every obstacle in range in a rather short-sighted feeding frenzy. What’s the saying Elephants always know best?... oh wait its never forget, isn't it, but anyway... they are clever! The highlights for me had to be Dad attempting to get onto the elephant, the two mahoots and me were in absolute hysterics. Also, as immature as our humour is- Dad's nellie laid some elephant-sized turds in the river, which gently bobbed round the front to where Dad was sitting behind the elephant's ears, the mahoot egging me on to throw a lump of poo at my father was priceless.

The three of us also went to the best waterfall everrrrrrrrr, despite having to share it with hundreds of other tourists. It was one of those layered jobbies, where I was in my element climbing from the bottom of the valley to the top up every stage and across every pool. It is also where I got my first introduction to rope swinging...

So after a bouncy bus ride South along a winding mountain road, passing a couple of distraught looking Westerners next to an injured Laos motorcyclist, we arrived in Vang Vieng. This was somewhere I was really looking forward to, even more so for the fact that Dad and Mum had been won round to the prospect of "tubing".

I am pretty sure my parents were oblivious to what tubing at Vang Vieng was really going to entail. I had heard the stories, but even I found myself momentarily in a surreal, otherworldly experience. And that was without hitting the Mushroom Shakes. So the scene...

We get to the river with our tractor inner-tubes in the afternoon. The sun glistens off the sparkling, slow-moving water with its eddies and back-currents, a gentle swish is uttered from the river as it lazily ambles over some shallow shingle. A tremendous splash fills the air as a man hurtles himself from a bamboo platform protruding from the near bank. He lands inches away from a "tuber" with a beer in each hand, surfacing underneath another tuber with a bandaged face from a previous collision. An eight year old "Health and Safety supervisor" gives the go ahead for a blonde beauty to gracefully swing off the platform on a trapeze, before the alcohol-induced courage is short-lived causing her to belly flop the water (or toned-abs the water I guess) in a mistimed descent that nearly hits a kayaker who is warily perusing the bar-infested banks. These bars are rammed with flesh and very little clothing as the backpacker world turns beautiful to dance to all the latest Western dance and R’n’B and the compulsory “Sex on Fire” by the Kings of Leon, in which I am brought back to earth with a thump. Dad obligatory decides to sing a long, as Mum discretely points out that the reason two girls are dancing right up against the speakers is that “they like the vibrations.”

Friends from the slow boat give my parents “legend” status, and I have to say I agree. Mum and Dad fully enter into the swing of things, and are of course warmly embraced by the crowd almost entirely half their age. A girl around my age looks over and approaches me (I prepare to switch on the charm) but then stumbles straight past making a bee-line for my father. Brilliant. Before I have to get tips on “game” from my old man, the parentals get on with the tubing, amidst pleas of them to “stay and partayyy” and make their way back home after getting screwed over by a French man. (But that would be a story for their blog, which would verge on mock-xenophobia.)

Mum and Dad headed down to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and I stayed one more night (back to a shack-like hovel) before a rather hung over kayaking trip down to the capital. There was some great rock-jumping to do on the way there as well. That evening we got on a night bus to Pakse, Southern Laos, where I got my 10 hours (despite the 6am arrival) and the parents were all social and that talking to some fear-mongerer who informed Mum of how risky it is to fly Laos airlines. Great, considering we were flying to Siem Reap (Cambodia) with them the next day. So after spending a night south of Pakse, where we checked out a Khmer Temple in preparation for Angkor, we flew on out, in the company of a couple of Germans. We seemed to enter an ongoing feud, which we at least found very entertaining. What must have sparked it was Mum innocently asking (read with a Scottish lilt) “Why do you put your rucksacks in rice sacks before getting on the plane? A lot of people in Laos would be more tempted to steal 20kg of rice, rather than a backpack.” To which the German reply was “so that they don’t get all dirty… like your sons (huge sneer all over his face). To be fair my backpack was pretty filthy.

After a perfectly adequate flight, we landed in Siem Reap and wasted no time in seeing the floating villages nearby. I felt like a bit of a culture pervert, peering into everyone’s houses when they were just trying to go about their daily lives- fishing, working in their floating shops, playing some pool in the floating bar, shooting some hoops on the floating basketball court… It was very interesting, and I also got to feed some Crocs and pity a python that was draped around tourists’ sweaty neck before being unceremoniously dumped into a cool box until the next one came along.

The temples were brilliant, although in the same vein that the Taj lost a little of its charm when you were up close and personal, after visiting less touristy temples beforehand, we were not as awe-struck as I thought we would be. Granted, we were there about 4pm, and missed the much less crowded sunrise over the Wat, but the scaffolding currently on it almost made me feel it looked better in the postcards. There also were no towering trees with humongous roots growing out of mammoth walls, no mysterious carved faces where you could identify who you most looked like, and no rubble and ruins which you could clamber over Indie-esque without feeling tricked by blatant signs of restoration. On that note we all bowed our heads solemnly when we came across an area of ruins with a proud sign stating that the restoration was a “joint Indian and Cambodian venture”. To be fair, the numerous World Heritage Sites we have seen in India were pretty well maintained, and maybe Angkor Wat being the 8th wonder of the world over the Taj has fuelled a secret mission to desecrate the jewel of Cambodia.

After a few lovely nights in Siem Reap, filled with great food and accommodation, and ultimately culminating in Mum plying me with alcohol so I would agree to her cutting off my beloved dreadlocks. She loved them as well, but tubing, kayaking and my ill-maintenance meant they needed repairs, an experience that had proved so painful last time that change looked very appealing. So off they came, in a ceremony where favourite dreads were kept for family and friends (I am not joking), and neatly packed for their flight home. Mum and Dad’s enthusiasm for my short hair was sensational, and after Dad muttered to Mum that “it would get the ladies” it didn’t take long for me to be won round. I shall miss my dreaded days dearly, but the fact that I can now have a haircut which is only an inch or two without looking like a pre-pubescent is some consolation.

The time came to bid the parents adieu and bring a very fun three weeks as a Watson trio to a close. Off they headed bright and early by bus to Bangkok, leaving their only son to check out as late as possible before hitting a $3 room, and ultimately finding a $1 communal sleeping area. An absolute steal, and one he happily took up so that the generous contribution from his hard working Mother could last a little longer, and hopefully fund a visit to the hygienic and sanitized piercing parlours of Australia.

Great so that gets us up to about two and a half weeks ago.... Phnom Penh and Southern Vietnam will hopefully follow shortly....

Also, the links on the front page should show all my photos of the jaunt so far!

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