Community: Real Life

I love you, Mr Ant


Ants and Jo

Taxi for two from Bangkok to Brighton? Ants Bolingbroke-Kent and Jo Huxter aim to cross 12 countries by tuk-tuk, and raise £50,000 for Mind.
Entry: 4
Date: 04/06/2006

While the girls indulge in massages and éclairs in Laos, poor Ting Tong gets violated.

Vang Vieng, Laos

Jo writes...

We are now in Vang Vieng about 150km north of Vientiane. Our driving speed has dropped to an average of about 30mph due to the copious potholes and winding hilly roads. Ants and I were both knackered today and so were each trying to get the other to drive. We both ate too many cakes over the weekend and as a result were feeling pretty sluggish.

On Saturday night we headed out to one of the two recommended restaurants in Vientiane. The food was quite good, but not a patch on Thailand. The company was interesting. This guy came over and sat at our table who was totally pissed (I assume on BeerLao). He repeated himself very frequently (as drunk people do) and spoke in broken English. His best comment of the night was 'I love you Mr Ant', which I have taken to repeating far too frequently. He fell off the stool and nearly took our table with him. After about 10 minutes our food came, but we were being typically reserved Brits and didn't tell him to leave. In the end a security guard and a waiter asked him to go, which he eventually did. We paid for our supper and then left the restaurant to head back into town.

On Sunday, we awoke and had breakfast with more ants in it, which was charming. I didn't need to eat sausages as I had enough protein from the little critters. We went out sightseeing to the beautiful gold temple (can't remember the name) that is the most important in Laos. I don't wear sunglasses and therefore might have sustained slight damage to the innards of my eye - gold is worse than snow. We did a bit of filming and then in the afternoon went for a herbal sauna and massage. I didn't like the sauna and only had a short session. The hot moist air makes me feel panicky and I find the sensation really unpleasant. Instead I drunk herbal tea and smoked lots of fags.

"I don't wear sunglasses and therefore might have sustained slight damage to the innards of my eye - gold is worse than snow."

We then had a massage, which was divine. I had a man and Mr Ant had a lady - Ant got the short straw it seems after we compared notes. Luckily I had put my underwear back on under my sarong as it fell off when I sat up mid massage. I know I am a naturist but there is a time and place for nudity and that wasn't it. Poor Mr Ant felt rather unrelaxed after her massage, especially having had the inside of her arm pinched quite hard (unintentionally). What better way to finish off the afternoon than with a sandwich and chocolate éclair. The sandwich was good, but the chocolate éclair contained the wrong sort of cream and to add insult to injury they had added custard. I ate it all the same, but was none too impressed.

This morning we split up. Ants went to sort out our Laos permits and I did some minor tuk-tuk mechanics i.e. checked the oil, water, tyres and tightened the big bolt on our steering column as our suspension keeps on dropping. Ants returned from the Ministry of Transport without the permit. Apparently the staff spoke very little English and suggested we return to the Friendship Bridge. Not an option, so she managed to get them to agree to do the paperwork, which we would collect later that morning. Good one Ants.

At 10.30am we hit the road and I tried to drive down a one way street the wrong way - well done Jo. We picked up our permit and hit the road. As we headed out of town, we pulled in to get the tyre pressure topped up. They were each 3psi down and I wrote down the required tyre pressures on my hand for the woman with the air gun. She nodded and squirted some air into TT's tyres. I wondered how she knew the correct pressure as there didn't seem to be a gauge visible. Still, I assumed that as she filled up tyres all day then she knew what she was doing. TT suddenly felt very easy to steer and I thought she had probably put a bit too much air in. I didn't realise until later that she had double the suggested air pressure. I will never let a random person violate poor TT again. We are lucky her tyres didn't burst from the excessive air. Tomorrow we will get our digital tyre inflator thing from the roof and do our own air in the future. The vehicles in Laos must all have the most pumped up tyres in South-East Asia and this is a risky thing if riding a motorbike - or a three-wheeler.

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