The plan was to meet up around noon with our costume bags in hand and then have a little fashion show to show off our tubing costumes! 

I got up around 10 to get some breaky, obviously headed straight for the banana, Nutella pancake.. Not as good this morning so that was slightly disappointing!  Just chilled out for a bit then we piled our costume bags on a table with the persons name on it and we had to take ours and go change!  I ended up with a rain poncho, some Thai pants and a flower headband- not as horrible as it could’ve been… 

We all came out hysterically laughing at everyone’s costumes and sat around guessing who got who. I had ended up cutting up my leopard pants I got in Chiang Mai into a super cute jungle woman outfit for Emily Z, anyone would attest to my superb crafting skills!  She also obviously looked the best because I didn’t want her walking around all day not looking like the beautiful gal she is!  Also people are really into “icing” others on this trip.. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s when you basically hide a Smirnoff ice that someone will randomly find and then they have to immediately chug it… Needless to say, these costume bags were a perfect secret hiding spot.   
Then we headed up to rent our tubes and took a song tao about twenty minutes down the road to the starting point on the river. 

 You would think it would be like a float down the river, drink in hand, tunes blasting kind of thing.. You would be sadly mistaken. 

You float for a minute, get a rope tossed to you and pull into a bar.  Everyone’s drinking and dancing outside and then as some people start to leave that bar, the rest follow.. And that continues for four bars.  Just floating bit by bit down the river from one bar to the next.  It’s obviously nothing like it used to be (which I referred to in my first Vang Vieng post) and only 3-4 bars will be open each day and they all trade off.  

Oh.. and there was a mud pit at the second bar.
   
Well by the third bar I was about done, so six of us left and floated the rest of the way down the river.  The scenery was absolutely stunning so it was nice to actually get to float and enjoy it.  We could’ve gotten out to get a tuktuk back to town, but we decided to float the rest of the way.  Yeaaaah.. That always takes longer than you anticipate, so we floated for another almost two hours and ended up not getting our full deposit back.  

Gwen and I got kind of detached from the other four and all we could think about was having a nice long shower and dinner/ a nap when we got back. Well turns out, there was no water in any of our rooms.  

So after feeling gross from the river and tired from the day I tried to have a nap, but my stomach was not letting me since I hadn’t eaten all day.  I grabbed a sandwhich from the street vendor (chicken, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, cucumber on a fresh baguette for 20,000kip which is basically $3) and met up with Julia and Lex at the Friends bar.  

 We hung around for a bit and then I was starting to feel tired so we grabbed a water and cold treats from one of the convenience stores and made our way back home. A few of us gathered on my front porch, but it was one of those nights where most of the group didn’t wake up from their nap so I’m going to sleep (still no water) and a few girls are going out dancing! 

Tomorrow: Vientiane!