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Don Khong Island |
A long, fragmented bus journey led us to the Laos border,
where crossing the border simply involved filling in a form at a table with a
tarpaulin stretched overhead, then waiting patiently while our bus driver biked
off with our passports and cash in hand. After a prolonged wait, he returned
with visas for all, a polite request for more money (as it was a Saturday they
charged extra) and asked us to haul our bags 200 metres down the road to meet
our next bus. Fortunately, tedious as this was, we didn’t have much further to
go before we reached our next destination: Don Khong, one of the islands in Si
Phan Don, otherwise known as 4,000 Islands.
It was at this point that the group divided – some of us
were going to Don Det instead for a more party-fuelled few days, but we’d
decided, along with Martijn and Pien, to head for the big, quiet island of Don
Khong. We deliberated over this for much for much of the day, as originally
we’d planned to go to Don Det, but we figured that we’d save the partying for
Vang Vieng and opted to chill out for a few days instead. So the driver dropped
the four of us by the Mekong ready for a wobbly longboat across to the island –
we almost landed in the river, but just made it ashore with minimal water
damage!
Like Cambodia, it was possible to pay in US dollars if
necessary, but the Laos currency (Kip) was a lot more in evidence than the Cambodian
Riel had been. Somehow though, we’d found ourselves arriving on an island
without an ATM, in an area of Laos with hardly any ATMs for miles, with only 16
dollars left, plus less than a pounds worth of Cambodian Riel and a handful of
Thai Baht! We had been told that there was one hotel on the island that would
allow you to use your credit card to withdraw money, so we optimistically
checked into the Souksady hostel, leaving Martijn and Pien to find their intended
hostel, and strolled with hope toward this makeshift bank. Thankfully, although
it wasn’t exactly a sound solution (we effectively paid for a room, and took
the cash equivalent away with us) we managed to get enough money to tide us
over for a few days. Crisis averted! That’s what you get for visiting an island
with only one road…
It really was quiet for a large island – there was a short
stretch with about eight hotels or hostels, some with restaurants, but
otherwise the island consisted of a handful of tiny villages and associated
farmland dotted around one ring road, with this tourist hub at one edge. The
view from the island was incredible though, amplified by the quiet – that
evening, we sat outside and had dinner in the dying sunlight with a couple of
beers and watched the sun set over the Mekong, with just the sound of the
water, insects, and the dull throb of chatter around us.
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Our Hostel |
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Our Hostel Restaurant |
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Our Hostel Restaurant + Kerry |
The next day we hired bikes from our hostel and explored the
island.....
Cycling through the aforementioned villages and being chased merrily by
some of the local kids (two of them were determined to beat us, and ran along
with us for ages!).
Several of them would wave at us when we passed, and some
of them held their hands out as if they were asking us to ‘give them five!’
Which, when we finally figured this out, made them even more inclined to run
after us – it was like a really confusing relay race.
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'High Five!' |
On the way around, we also stopped at a couple of small
local temples – despite the islands’ small size, there were still some monks
maintaining the temples, and they had some new designs we hadn’t seen before in
other Buddhist temples, which was interesting – lots more mirrored glass in
star formations, which was very pretty rather than grand.
We’d taken a small picnic with us, but the heat of the day
(it may well have been one of the hottest days so far, or it certainly felt as
if it was!) eventually drove us back to the hostel to have a snooze in our much
cooler (and quite lovely) room. Keen not to miss the sunset, we made sure we
were back outside before 4.30pm (it still felt strange to have an early sunset
in the heat!). We decided to have dinner at our hostel restaurant and bumped
into Martijn and Pien again, who’d also been cycling for the day (unsurprising,
considering this was the main activity available!), and enjoyed a lovely dinner
and a few beers by the river while exchanging travel tales (and books! Thank
you Pien for getting me into the Hunger Games at last!) as the sun went down.
We also had our first Asian power cut – but the quickly-offered candlelight made
it an even lovelier evening, highlighting the remoteness of our location.
We’d been ready for a day or two to relax and re-energise,
and Don Khong delivered – we felt suitably rested to get ourselves ready for
some tree-swinging action in Pakse, where we were looking forward to the Tree
Top Explorer experience – two days of ziplining through the rainforest past
waterfalls and sheer rockfaces!
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