Vang Vieng (Laos)
I have no photo's of this day, neither do I have much recollection of what it offered, which to me was not a hell of a lot. In cricketing terms this would have been known as the rest day, in other parts it would be understood as the 'you be fucto day'. As rest days go their stories are commonly made within context of the drama, trials and tribulations of the night before. Ahhh yes, the night before, so very, very long ago.......
I have no photo's of this day, neither do I have much recollection of what it offered, which to me was not a hell of a lot. In cricketing terms this would have been known as the rest day, in other parts it would be understood as the 'you be fucto day'. As rest days go their stories are commonly made within context of the drama, trials and tribulations of the night before. Ahhh yes, the night before, so very, very long ago.......
In the last post JJ and I had just finished the round up at the Australian bar that we'd managed to somehow zero in on due to our crazy craving for food and lots of it. Leaving the bar we found ourselves on the Vang Vieng streets, trying with all our navigational nause and knowledge to and locate our little garden of Eden amongst all the other small patches that were strewn along the walk back home. Whilst at this point I was still relatively in the zone of being OK, the walk home again felt like it was taking hours and the conversation with JJ felt as though it was taking place under water. I mean, I could see her mouth moving but the delay on deciphering her words and making sense of whatever it was that she may have been saying just made it laborious and an absolute chore for me. What was extremely cool however was the kick arse rock concert that seemed to be going off in one of the resorts close to where we were staying. I entertained the idea of going to check it out and was going to mention it to JJ when all of a sudden the music stopped and then I realised it, that my friend was hell of an awesome auditory hallucination you were having, but sadly, an hallucination never the less. Much better that you crash out somewhere soon H!
Somewhere along that evening's timeline JJ and I had purchased a huge slice of confusion with our burgers. I'm sure that when we got into our rooms I sat on the edge of the bed, doing I'm not sure what and JJ was in the bathroom, doing the equivalent of what I was doing. As I laid back on the bed and entertained sleep I heard the roar of a Sumatran tiger, or was it a Black Panther? If you've ever heard the start of Black Cat by Janet Jackson, well, the roar at the start of that song was exactly what I heard. This woke me up promptly but as I looked around the room, well, you can guess what I saw, not much other than a bemused JJ wondering what the hell it was that I was doing! As I tried to get back to sleep again I could have sworn blind that JJ pulled off the same roar about 2cms from my ear but when I challenged her on the issue she just laughed and explained that I was hearing things, was I JJ? Was I really? I don't know, that freakin' roar sounded damn authentic! But so too did that cannon fire that was coming from the other side of the room, and for that matter the killer rock concert that was going off in the Vang Vieng surrounds a little earlier. Ummmm, yeah, sleep was now going to have to be my preferred mode of transport for the night, time to check in and check out.
The evening was an absolute magical mystery tour of thoughts and sounds, all kinds of fun from the bits and pieces that I remembered, but as the sun took its first bite of Vang Vieng the next morning, the day after the night before, my day of the 'one that never was' had just commenced. The starting point was a knock on the door and that had both JJ and I wishing that this person would just split, really, what could be so important that this knocking had to continue for seconds, 'Man, end it already! Your seconds of knocking is doing my head in!'. As I made the desperately difficult decision to get up and check it out the commotion I realised from just trying to stand that my journey from the bed to the door, probably all of 5mtrs, was going to be EPIC! It was the best delivery of the new wave dance 'two steps forward and one step back' that anyone has ever delivered. Throw in a sideways fade and shimmy and there you had it, my journey to the front door was one for the ages. As the standard clichè goes, it's all about the journey and on this occasion I had to agree. I opened the door to find this slightly built Lao man with towels in his hand, just staring at me, and me in turn reaching out, trying to grab the towels from him. This was the only part that I didn't understand because the guy was unwilling to pass them over and I didn't have either the capacity or the will to explain to him that I was zonked and that I'd prefer that he'd just leave. I did my best to motion him inside and then tried with all my might to make it back to the comforts of the bed. I think the few mins that it took me to get up and back to the door was one of the highlights of the trip for JJ.
The six to eight hours after that event was just a haze. I recall JJ leaving our place once or twice, for a clothes washing mission I believe on one occasion and then perhaps for souvenirs on another. Really, I don't know because I can't remember a thing. This 'never happened' day was all about me catching glimpses of the light coming through our window and convincing myself on each occasion that my comfortable bed was the much better option for the next hour., and the one after that. Later that evening JJ did convince me that dinner might be an appropriate event but at that point it was all over, the sun had raced me all day and then had me well and truly beaten before even making it to the starting line. I mentally ruled the whole day out and thus promised myself that tomorrow would be another opportunity to turn it all around.
