The Arrival of Mike and Jeff Immediately Followed By A Visit to the Hospital

Upon leaving Luang Prabang on Saturday evening, we boarded the bus armed with a couple of beers and took the 7 hour ride to Vang Viang, our next stop in Laos. We were very excited because our friends Mike and Jeff, fellow kickballers, had flown into Bangkok and were on their way up to meet us on Sunday. We were told via email that they’d be arriving on rented motorcycles and would be staying for a few days. We were very excited… we’d met quite a few fun people, but it’s really nice to have a degree of familiarity after 2 months overseas. We expected them at 2-3pm and decided to pony up at a small restaurant and await their arrival. At 4pm, the restaurant manager gave us a strong hint that they’d be closing before dinner and that we should mosey on out.

We went back to our hotel to have a couple of drinks in the reception area, to play some gin rummy and continue to wait. At around 5pm, I got a whiff of olive oil, garlic and shame and turned to Molly and said, “They’re here.” 20 seconds later, Jeff walked around the corner and we all rejoiced. That evening we went out for a killer dinner, had some drinks, got my rear end handed to me by a Laotian in pool and went home to bed, knowing the next day would be packed with excitement. We planned on doing some cave exploration in the morning followed by a tubing trip in the afternoon.

Monday morning we awoke at a reasonable time, grabbed some quick and free breakfast at the hotel and went to rent scooters for our 20km trip outside the city to the Elephant and Water Caves. Jeff and Mike both rented their own scooters, but Molly being the hazard on the road that she typically is jumped on the back of mine. We made it to the caves without incident, though the roads are absolutely horrendous in this area. Potholes are literally the size of craters. We’re talking 4 feet in diameter, very deep and VERY hazardous. They’re also in clusters, which doesn’t make navigating them any easier.

We arrived at the caves and parked our scooters in the parking area before boarding a small boat to cross a river with a raging current. Prior to departure, I met a nice cow who seemed to like the taste of my skin (he licked me about 6 times) and kept prodding me to pet him. It was the nicest (and only) cow I’ve met on this trip. We got to the other side and were waved along to the 1^st cave which was really rather disappointing. It was small, had a large Buddha lying down and a tiled floor. We immediately wondered whether this was the best idea, but still, we had 3 more caves to see. At the entrance to every cave, a member of this local tribe would charge each one of us between 5 and 20 thousand kip as an entrance fee. After leaving the first cave, we were greeted by 2 Laotian locals who would guide us through the rest of our trip. We walked a long way through the rice paddy. Jeff asked is he could plant some rice which was received well – these poor saps didn’t want to do it and hell, if you can get a free migrant worker, WHY NOT?! Shortly thereafter, we continued our trek and found ourselves in a very large cave with numerous stalactites and stalagmites. One was in the shape of an elephant which obviously gave name to the Elephant Cave. It was really impressive and we were the only ones in there, which made it even cooler.

After a twenty minute walk through we exited the cave and walked into another, very similar cave. This one was slightly smaller, but equally impressive. The ceilings in both caves varied from roughly 25 feet to about 6 feet. We got some astonishing pictures in these caves and were very impressed at the sites we were able to see. After leaving, Jeff was lucky enough to find a small leach snacking on his leg. Apparently rice paddies are absolutely loaded with leaches – which would further explain why these guys were thrilled to let Jeff plant the rice for them.

We walked a good distance and stopped for a beer at the the entrance to the final cave. This whole thing is really run by the local tribe. They have people handling a different aspect of all of this adventure. We bought our guide a beer and discussed how we were going to get into this final cave. There was a rope that extended from the shore to the mountain that seemed to cover the entire mouth of this river. Molly swore that she wouldn’t go because she was very concerned about where exactly we were going. There was about an 8 inch gap between the water level of the river and the base of the mountain that hung over the river. Mike and Jeff are, however, very persuasive and convinced her to go. I tried to jump in and was quickly warned that if she hated it, it wouldn’t be my fault if I stayed out. It’s like they’ve been married before!

We finished our beers, grabbed our tubes, were given a “waterproof” head lamp which was really a motorcycle battery tied around your neck with 2 wires connecting to a headlamp to guide your way through the pitch blackness. We got on our tubes, used the rope to pull ourselves to the base of the mountain and were instructed to “follow me” as this tiny Laotian man disappeared under the mountain. I was last to go, taking pictures with Jeff’s underwater camera and couldn’t believe who had the gall to originally go into this thing. There’s no definitive opening to the cave and no real clearing until about 15 feet into it. We trusted our guide, name Lo, and followed him like a pack of sheep. Sure enough, about 15 feet into the cave it opened and was really cool. We used the rope to pull our way roughly 200 feet through the cave until we came to an area that wasn’t covered with water. We hopped off of our tubes and were told to follow Lo who got onto his belly and crawled into this enclosure that was roughly 10 inches off the ground. It was also about 25 feet long, which is NOT fun when you’re incredibly claustrophobic. More than claustrophobia, I’m afraid of peer pressure and ridicule though, so we all did it. We got through alright and came out into another water filled opening. We waded through about 100 feet of water before Lo stopped us, told us that the mineral rich clay to our right was very good for the skin and then covered our faces in it. I think he found this very amusing. We walked all the way to the end of the cave where we learned that there’s NOTHING that Jeff hates more than piles of rocks. I pointed out, “Hey, look, someone stacked a few rocks up over there!” you know, just small ones less than 3 inches in diameter and no more than 5 rocks in a place. Jeff let a string of obscenities like I’d never heard and proclaimed that the people who stack those rocks should be murdered for ruining the caves for the rest of us. Point taken, rocks should remain flat on the ground…

We made our way out of the cave the exact same way we’d gone it. We unloaded our car batteries, gave our tubes back and collected our belongings, knowing that the trip was over. Lo had been nice to us and had been patient and willing to take pictures, so we decided to reward him with a small tip. In Laos, 1 US dollar is equivalent to 8000 kip. To put this into perspective, 30,000 kip will get you a really nice Laotian dinner. Mike tried to give Lo roughly 5 US dollars and he denied it, shaking his head and pointing to the people that ran the place we got our beers at. We took this to mean that if he accepted in front of them, he’d have to share or give it up to them later. Lo walked us about half way back to the boat and then stopped us all after his friend joined our group. He told us that he’d now take the money and Mike went to hand him the tip again. He shook his head, snickered and told us that it was 400,000 kip for the guided tour. We were all very taken aback as a guided tour fee had NEVER been mentioned in any of this. We assumed that our entrance fee to all of these caves included a guide because without one, we’d never have found it and they don’t offer any maps. We all looked at each other and almost began to laugh out loud. 400,000 kip is $50 US dollars. We can subside for an entire day on $50 US dollars so as you can imagine, there’s NO WAY we’re paying this little scheister that amount of money. Things got very tense for a moment until we realized that we collectively had about 650 pounds of man on our side and they’d need to get about 8 other to equal us. They realized we weren’t taking them seriously and then cut they’re price in half, like they were doing us a favor. Again, we snickered and Jeff pulled out a 50,000 bill and said, “look man, we’ll give you this as a tip and a nice gesture. You can take this or leave it, but that’s ALL we’re giving.” Lo shook his head and we then turned our backs and started walking away. Lo eventually took the 50,000 without saying thank you once. Here’s a tip for you, Lo: If you expect to be paid for a service that’s not explicitly listed as an additional fee service, you’d better negotiate that crap up front, not after the service has already been rendered. They followed us all the way back to the river looking very upset, but really, what could they do? We boarded the boat and got back to our scooters with nothing but dirty looks coming our way.

Of course, once again, my motorbike wouldn’t start. A local villager came along and tinkered with it until it eventually fired up and we were off. The dirt road that led us back to the main road was fun – Jeff and Mike were doing wheelies on their scooters which provided for a number of laughs. We got back to the main road, dressed fully in kickball jerseys like a scooter gang, and were on the open road once again. We cruised along for about 12km before we got stuck behind a giant commuter bus that was spewing clouds of black smoke behind it. It was extremely nauseating to follow and about 20 seconds into sitting behind this behemoth, Jeff and Mike passed it. Molly and I followed suit which apparently slightly angered the driver as he kept honking at us every time he’d approach our rear. At this point a minibus rode roughly 70 feet in front of us followed by Mike, Jeff, Molly and I and then the huge bus. Mike lead the way, passing the minibus first and Jeff immediately followed. Weighing our options after carefully calculating that there was no oncoming traffic, we began to speed up to attempt the same maneuver. Unfortunately, just before executing the pass, the van in front of us locked up his brakes as he was about to head into a pothole landmine. My options were simple – run right into the back of the van because the stopping ability of a 1988 scooter is that of a rhino on ice skates, or I could attempt an evasive action and try to swerve around him and risk the potholes. I opted for the latter while grabbing a hand full of brakes to try to make this as least lethal as possible. Unfortunately, these manual transmission scooters were different than every other we’d ridden in Thailand and the only hand brake was the front brake (whereas Thai scooters have 2 hand brakes – right was rear, left was front.) In grabbing the hand brake rather hard, I locked up the front tire on what was now just a dirt road and skid sideways into the pothole landmine. The bike, upon entering a crater, top ended and threw us off. I landed with both palms on the pavement, followed by my left forearm and then left knee and then left foot. Molly came off pretty much on top of me and rode me like a sled, other than a serious smack of her left knee and a couple scrapes on her forearm. She was very shaken up though and worried about me. I was really shaken up too, apologizing profusely and praying she didn’t break her knee. Locals came from everywhere with antiseptic and gauze and were extremely helpful. It says a lot about Laotian people that they may only own 3 chickens and a milk cow but are the first to react and swarm to the scene of an accident to help in any way they can. Another guy grabbed my scooter, gave it a minor touchup, made it rideable and asked Mike to take Molly to the hospital while I drove myself.

We made it there, in one piece and hobbled into the “emergency room.” I say it like that because there was a maternity center (room about the size of our hotel room) and an emergency room. I walked in to find a nurse just hanging out with a scale. She smiled at me while I bled everywhere. Molly had run in before me while I tried to park my scooter. As I walked in, looking for Molly, the nurse smiled at me and went back to staring at the scale. I wondered whether I’d really died in the accident and was now imagining going through real person motions – she barely acknowledged me and I’m dropping blood all over her floor!! Finally, I said, “White wife? Motorbike accident! (while showing her the ground beef that was my arm) She said, “Oh….. there” while pointing around the corner. I walked into the ER and there’s 3 beds. One is occupied by a man who appears to have a belly ache, the middle is empty for me and the right bed has Molly on it. They have her up and are looking at her knee. I walk in, they look at me in utter disgust and tell me to lay down on the bed. It took a minute or two to comply but I finally did it. As I lie there, I could make out, “need to stitch knee” through their other gibber jabber. So, naturally they break out their needle and thread and got ready to go. They tried to disinfect first, which was undoubtedly quite painful in an inch long and half inch deep cut. She screamed and asked for a local anesthetic to help numb the pain. They didn’t seem to understand and went about their stitching plans. Upon the first needle prick she let out a scream of pain which made me quite angry. I yelled, “STOP! RIGHT NOW!” while sitting up in bed. They all turned around and looked while I said, “No more until I speak to someone that speaks English!” 1 minute later, the head (only) doctor walks in and I told him that there was no way they were going to stitch her up without some sort of numbing agent. He complied and gave her a shot in her arm to calm her down. Once again, we had to stop him, “STILL NO, local anesthetic in knee! Numb knee!” He didn’t look happy but finally complied. I don’t get this… we’re paying for everything you give us. If I ask you for something to make us more comfortable, why the crap wouldn’t you do it. First of all, your patients don’t have to hear our screams and secondly you get more money, you bozo!! They finished Molly and wheeled her out, undoubtedly unpleased with being told how to do their jobs.

Next, it was my turn. They had me lie down on my back while they first addressed the cleaning of my knee. Hydrogen peroxide followed by a light scrubbing, removal of the embedded rock and then a good covering of nice, painful iodine. They got my foot real quick as well, with the same process minus the rock. Then, it was time for the real fun, addressing my ground beef forearm and palms. They asked me to lie on my stomach, which I was obviously hesitant to do. Thankfully Mike had joined me in the emergency room by this point, along with Jeff shortly thereafter. Mike had purchased a large bag of ice which he was holding on my neck and occasionally using to knock me out when I started to sob too loudly. The cleaning of my forearm felt pretty awful and then she said, “Oooooooh, need stitch.” I begged Mike not to let them do this without some sort of shot for pain. He insisted over and over, “Lidocane, Lidocane!” They started the first stitch and I turned around on the table, irate and yelled, “Numbing! No pain!” I didn’t see this but Mike told me they then took an entire syringe of Litocane, jammed it as far into my forearm as possible and emptied the syringe. I’m no doctor, nor do I play one on tv, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s done. Also, I’m relatively certain that if this is, in fact, the procedure for administration that typically a timeframe of 10-15 minutes is needed to allow it to set in. But, who needs “science” or “common sense” or “sympathy”? They stitched up my arm with 8 (which seemed like 94) stitches, called me a sissy and sent us on our way.

We would not have made it through this without Mike and Jeff. We can’t thank them enough for how much they did for us throughout all of this. Not only did they help us to the hospital, but they went home to search our room for our insurance information, back a second time to get us clothes, left to go buy me new flip flops (I had destroyed the originals in the crash) as well as ice and medical supplies and then generally took care of us for 2 days. Not to mention standing in the emergency room and just being there for us. True friends and we hope to be able to repay the favor one day.

After one more day of moping around and taking pain pills, Molly and I left for Vientiane (the capital) in order to get our Vietnamese visas at the embassy and Mike and Jeff headed to Luang Prabang (where we’d been before Vang Vieng.) Our time in Vientiane was nothing to write home about. We were in pretty miserable shape, became homesick and generally felt sorry for ourselves. Our spirits lifted on the last day as we knew we’d soon be in Vietnam and enjoying brother Dave’s awesome wedding gift to us – a full week in Hanoi and Halong Bay guided by a tour company called Handspan Tours. We arrived last night feeling a bit better and are very excited to get going. On the docket for today are the Water Puppets. What those are is anyone’s guess.

Mike and Jeff's Arrival

Mountains on the Way to the Cave

Licking Cow

Cave Entrance

Canoe to the Caves

Learning About the Rice Paddy

Migrant Worker Jeff Planting Rice

Going Down the Stairs Into the Cave

Beers Always Help You Make Good Decisions

Like Strapping a Battery Around Your Neck and Getting in the Water

Yeah.... That's the Cave Entrance

In We Go

The Crawling Portion of the Cave - By Far the Scariest

Mud Bath!!

Jeff's Sweet Wheelie

Post Crash

"No, It's Not Broken.... Your Knee That Is."

Pre Fight Weigh In

Drugged, Drunkening and Happy

2 Days After the Crash

Molly's Stitched Knee

My Knee

Forearm 5 Days Later