Fun and Games at the Waterpark

Well, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or bruises their rib cartilage, as Pete did yesterday. The brand-spanking new water park in Vientiane has only been open for a month or two, so it was a real pleasure to visit - everything was clean, there weren't too many people and the staff were super-friendly and eager to please. The slides were awesome, and as we found out, a little dangerous too. I'd say they were designed with 70kg Asian men in mind, not 90kg+ westerners. After half a dozen rides we decided to have just one more, and as I hurtled down the intermediate-speed slide I found myself wondering 'how many people are likely to be injured on this thing', since my spine was twisting in all sorts of directions. As I exited the splash-down pool, Pete was launched from the tower with much fan-fare from the lifeguards to see how fast they could get him to go. It turns out he went pretty fast, so fast in fact that I saw almost his entire body above the guards on one of the corners. On the second last corner, he had moved well above the horizontal and came down on the side of his chest with a loud thud. He wasn't so good after that and it certainly put a dampener on the afternoon. He managed to perk up for a few hours last night at dinner (maybe it was the red wine?) but we both had an interrupted night of sleep because of his pain. We were both quite worried that he had broken a rib or something.

Today we have spent about $15 on tuk-tuks trying to find a GP. After two visits to the Oz Embassy Clinic we found out that they didn't have a doctor rostered on today at all, and they referred us to the (much cheaper and friendlier) French Clinic. The doctor there chuckled when Pete described how he had injured himself, and the doctor replied that 'Every week since that park opened I have treated someone!'. Apparently someone actually fell off the slide and onto the ground some weeks ago. Here's hoping that person was OK. The moral of the story is: Don't injure yourself in Laos, whatever you do! Medical help can be tricky to find.