Four Children on a Kayak

VIENTIANE: Much of the rest of my time upriver was spent swimming, watching the sun skulk behind the mountains and generally just lounging about. However on my final day I did get a little active and rent a double kayak to take upriver with another of my many new friends, Paula. Obviously paddling a heavy plastic double kayak upriver isn't exactly the easiest thing but we did eventually make some headway when our progress was confronted by a difficult but not, at least we thought, insurmountable grade one rapid.

But lacking the expertise and the skill to get her upriver we were forced to beach her, before carrying her into the beyond. With the kayak beached and our arms aching, I started to weigh up the possibilities of bodysurfing on the surging water. It is indeed possible. While I was mucking around in the water another boat appeared, piloted by four village tykes who managed to navigate it upstream without difficulty. I helped them get their boat onto the bank and then they promptly produced a small tyre tube. Running upstream they took turns throwing themselves onto the mercy of the water while we watched on. After a while they tyred enough to take out a pair of machetes and start hacking away at oranges which they kindly shared for us.

Then it was our turn: "Falang, falang, you go." The eldest handed me the tube pointing up river. It looked like fun until I was ankle deep in the shallow water. I lay down on the tube and then suddenly all four children piled on top of me. On a tiny tube, in shallow water, it was gathunk gathunk gathunk on the rocks for my ankles and knees all the way to the rapids. Their fun wasn't over though. After convincing us to carry our kayak up past the rapid all four of them jumped on, two of them still standing up. Like true river rats they made it down successfully though we did get a little scared when they started to drift almost out of sight but they managed to, almost effortlessly, return our kayak to us and after a while we were able to continue our own, very relaxing way upstream.