More Tubing Adventures

We're still making our way down the river and choose another bar. This bar was more like one table with beer (you all know how much we support our local, small businesses...damn those big, greedy companies!) Now this small bar didn't have the technology of the big one's; meaning they had to actually canoe to the middle of the river instead of using a rope to fish us in. We decide this isn't fair for the workers and we get out of our tubes and start walking over to shore. The worker is helping Liz and looks over at Beth. He warns her "It's deep" and immediately Beth goes down; arm raised of course to prevent the BeerLao from going under. Hilarity ensues; classic!

Tubing Adventures

Vang Vieng, the Las Vegas of SE Asia, where people come to get drunk and tube down the river. This is our tubing experience.Let us paint the picture...a river, bars on every side of the river with rope swings to jump into the river, and tubers everywhere. The 3 of us float down the river for some time and decide on a bar. To actually get to the bar workers will fish tubers in with a sick and rope which tubers must grab and then reel into the bar. When all 3 of us have made it ashore we each get a BeerLao with a free shot of whiskey (Beth loves a good deal). After the shot and half way through the BeerLao (FYI: 1 BeerLao=640 mL) Jill and Beth get the courage to try the swing. The swing is about 30m high and basically you jump off the platform holding onto dear life from a trapeze like bar, swing and jump into the river. Seems fairly simple.Jill goes first (naturally since she's a leader) and jumps and swings just fine. However, when her head pops up from under water she says "Oh no, my shoulder". Her shoulder dislocated and it hurt like hell...this is a tragedy for us girls.Now it's Beth's turn. Beth is afraid of heights and when she looks out into the river her knees start to shake. Naturally at this point a line has formed behind Beth, yet they are very encouraging and talk her through her fear. (Travelers always watch out for one another.) Beth prepares for her big decent and takes to the squatting position and with the look of intense concentration; she counts " one... two... three..." still in the squatting position she doesn't muster up the courage to jump and stands up. Again, encouragement from the line and the onlookers. Oh but wait, she can't jump b/c a large group of tubers are in the way and she must wait to let them pass. So now Beth has an audience of the line behind her, the onlookers, and the large group of tubers in the river all cheering her on. Mind over matter they say. They all start counting "Three...two...one..."she jumps! Pathetic really, it's more of a step off the platform and no doubt a scream of a four-letter word we shall not share. She almost immediately let's go of the trapeze bar (due to her lack of finger strength) one arm at a time, and falls frighteningly close to the "Danger Zone". When Beth pops up she finds Liz, Jill, the onlookers, the tubers, and the staff laughing for it will certainly go down as the worst attempt to swing in all of Vang Vieng swinging history. When Beth gets to shore she looks at the girls and says "We gotta go." Continue on the river they go.

Destination Bangkok

The following occurred within the first hour of arriving in Bangkok.

Preface: After realizing the travelers would be arriving in Bangkok at 11:30pm and would probably not feel like looking for a hostel Beth decides, with less than 12 hours to departure, to book a hotel online. Thinking ahead she even prints out the hotel name and map of the location to show the cab driver, assuming it would be easier for him.

Cab driver: "Where are you going?"
Beth hands over the printed material of the hotel name and map. Cab driver looks at it and gives it back to Beth. He starts to make some grunting noises and then grabs the papers back from Beth again while driving off. Again he continues to grunt and moan with and increase in pitch, shaking his head to the left and right. Beth, Liz, and Jill start to laugh at their first experience with a crazy Thai cab driver.

The cab driver then proceeds to ask Beth about the hotel by pointing to the name on the paper and Beth, being the multi-linguistic that she is, replies with "si". With this laughter erupts from the backseat and the knowledgeable Jill and Liz inform Beth they're in Thailand! However, the laughter is short lived as a result of the ca drivers continuous grunting and moaning and shaking of his disapproving head.

The 3 experience fright and question where their hotel is located and if the cab driver can get them there; and they experience excitement knowing this is only the first of the many more instances that will occur on their trip.

The Beginning

For 2 1/2 years we have lived in Seattle, WA and have experienced many great times full of laughter, dinners, drinks, and friends. We have also experienced new roommates, one crazy landlord, breakups, broken hearts, and collectively 17 different jobs (a little Buddha goes to the person who can correctly guess who had the most and how many).

While sitting in the booth or on the futon we have schemed up living and working in London, working in South America, visiting our friend Tom in Florence; but the one remaining constant was quitting our jobs and travelling with each other to have one unforgettable adventure. Finally, 31 months later, we make good on all our talk.

The following are the blog worthy stories of the tri-haired colored girls adventures in SE Asia.