It's been a year to the day since my world collapsed. It's been a year since I actually questioned my own sanity. OK I know it's not great now but I was made to question it in the way that perhaps things had happened and I wasn't aware of them type way. Today it is a year to the day since I was thrown out of the house I shared with Gom. I left my home. I left my cat. My suicide cat. Gom brought him for me after I first tried to kill myself back in 2007 and I loved him so much but there was no way he could have gone with me as he didn't like other cats and just attacked them when they came near. It's a year to the day since I parked the car in front of the river and nearly drove in to it.
This year has been pretty pants really. Except the 3 months I was away travelling it's been a really crap year. Even when I was travelling though I was thinking of death and suicide. I've had so many emotions in the past year. So many negative ones. Not so many joyful, happy memories. I can probably count my happy memories that I will remember on one hand. I don't even need a whole hand. Yet, the negative ones. Well I need a 100. One of them is kinda funny in a way and kinda worrying. I'll write it down as I didn't write about it at the time in my diary as by then I had stopped writing about the trip in the diary.
I was in Vang Vieng in Laos...anyone who knows of this place will probably know where this story is already going. Anyone who doesn't well have a look at here here and here (this is probably the best one though). Bare in mind when I went was rainy season and the river flowed slightly faster. I went on the river a few times. Twice of those were with a tube and the other times I swam or had a kids blow up rubber ring. In Vang Vieng places openly sell weed and mushrooms. Either as shakes or as pizza, tea, spliffs etc. I had been with my friend Raq and we did mushrooms and we were fine on them. We just laughed so much. Actually we laughed so much we nearly wet ourselves.
Raq went after a month of travelling with me and I had about 2 weeks left of the end of my trip. Knowing how cheap Laos was and how much fun we had in Vang Vieng I decided I was going to go back there on my own for the final bit of my trip. I had another 10 days there on my own.
One day I went out on the river and got talking to people and hung on to their tube as they went in the tube and I swam along. I decided I was going to get a mushroom/weed shake. It was an all in one. I had had a couple of buckets (basically a kids sandcastle building bucket filled with a small bottle of Lao whiskey which was actually rum with industrial strength red bull, which is banned most places as actually has amphetamines in it. So I got this shake. After sitting in the sun a while watching people do rope swings (see video) etc I felt a tad weird. I got over paranoid as the people I was with hadn't done anything other than a couple of beers. All of a sudden I was tripping. Not in a nice way.
I knew I needed to get back to the guest house and I knew I couldn't get back in the river. I was on the right side of the river at least so didn't need to get back in the water. From where I was I could see the point where the tuk tuks drop people off to start the tubing. For anyone who has been I was at the mud volley ball bar/shack and they drop you off at the Q bar. It was only a few hundred metres if that. I was managing to hold it together quite well. I knew I needed to walk back. By this point my shoes had broken so I was bare foot. I had to walk back across the fields. It was a tiny path along side a ditch filled with water. I knew where I needed to be going yet my legs weren't really working properly. I was tripping also. I kept seeing things. I have a massive phobia of snakes and I knew that there was a possibility of some being around. I felt as though the sun was melting me. It was hot. I was also dehydrated and I was tripping and had no shoes.
I honestly thought that my skin was peeling off my face as the sun was so hot on me. I was scared as I was also aware that I was tripping and paranoid as of the weed. I was walking across these fields and I could see the farmer watching me from the distance. The path seemed to stop and I had to cross the ditch. I was stood there for what seemed like ages thinking that there was no way I could cross this ditch. It was only about a metre wide and not a big drop or anything. So the farmers could get around they had these wooden planks across them. I needed to use these to cross. They were little bridges. I was starting to panic. Luckily the farmer could see that I was in trouble and took pity on me. He came up to me and took my hand and helped me across these little plank bridges. Finally I made it back to where the tuk tuks were. It must have taken me over an hour to walk so little distance. I thought I was cutting my feet to shreds as of being bare foot and I thought my skin was peeling off my face. I finally got back to the guest house at about 5pm and fell in to my bed. I slept until 11am the next day. I woke up feeling a little groggy but otherwise fine. After this I didn't do mushrooms again for the rest of the trip. Well I haven't done them again since. When I did them with Raq it was amazing. We laughed so much. I thought I would be ok. It wasn't. It was horrible. I remember looking at the mountains at the side of the river and the colours being so vivid. Everything was so sharp. It was like everything was fake. It was not a nice experience.
I went out on the river a couple of days after this. But I decided I wasn't going to do any substances. I was having fun watching people hurt themselves on the swings and slides etc. I wasn't even drunk. I had been in mud bar again. I really liked that bar. I was going back down the wooden ladder/steps and I just dropped. All the way from the top to the bottom. Right on my arse. What stopped me going in to the river was the wooden pole which ended up between my legs. If I had have been a bloke I would have probably have been infertile after. I wouldn't have minded to much if I was pissed but I was sober at this point. I had only had one beer. So on top of the pain I also had the embarrassment of falling. I did decide to drink through the pain. The next day though I could not move. I could not lie on my right side and I struggled to even sit down. That was the last day on the river for me. I spent the rest of my time lying on my left side in bars watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
Vang Vieng was also one of the times where I had been on the river and smoked and drank a LOT of weed shakes. I was also very drunk after drinking numerous buckets. I was with Raq. We were on the wrong side of the river and it was starting to get dark. I couldn't get down the river bank to get back in to the river. Raq enlisted the help of a very nice group of people. It was here I started having suicidal thoughts again. Wanting to take advantage of the situation that could so look like an accident. I thought I would be able to get on the river and just drift and maybe drown. I kept trying to get out the tube but they kept shouting at me. I never told Raq what I planned that day.
It was while I was in VV that I started stockpiling the pills to bring home as you don't need anything on prescription over there.
Although I have written about VV here in a bad way. It was one part of the trip that I enjoyed the most. It is an amazing place. Not at all an Asian experience, except from the total disregard for health and safety which is a common thing all over Asia. But it makes the experience that little bit more fun. But everyone in VV has happy. 8/10 also have pink eye. I managed to avoid that one luckily. My injuries from falling down the steps were bad enough thank you. If I had have been in this country I would have gone to the doc as I couldn't move for about a week after falling down the steps. I also had a very painful neck. I just got on with it though and with the help of prescription pain killers, diazepam, and alcohol it was made a little more bearable. If I was here paracetamol just would not have cut it!
Anyway. I appreciate people (if I have anyone who reads this) are probably getting sick of me moaning on about my mental health problems. Well tough! Lol. But I will try and lighten the mood a little and write now and again about my travel experiences. Writing helps me when I am in a bad way. I don't always need to write about how I want to die, how I want to self harm, and general moaning to be distracted so I will try and write more about travel experiences and fun stuff.
x
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