4000 Islands

We left Pakse early in the morning and after a 3 hours bus ride (quite short for a change) and a 30 min boat ride we reached our island in the southern Mekong delta of Laos. Two of the main islands for tourists are Don Det and Don Khone in the very south. You could practically jump into the water and swim over to Cambodia... Don Det is more known as the party place while Don Khone is quieter and more laid back. For our purposes we chose the quieter island of Don Khone and got ourselves a nice bungalow with sunset views on the Mekong river and a balcony with a sun bed and a hammock.
After the journey and the aftermath of the caffeine overdose we decided to literally do nothing but chill in the hammock, read and work a bit on the blog for the rest of the day.

On the second day we were brave enough to rent a bike to explore the tiny island a bit during the day. One could see that tourism on the island only started to develop in recent years as the "roads" everywhere (also the "main road") were only very bumpy dirt tracks full of potholes. Our first stop was the Tad Khone Pa Soi waterfall on the eastern side of the island. You will find waterfalls and dangerous rapids pretty much everywhere in this delta which had been causing big headaches to the French at the time they tried to gain more control over the Mekong region and wanted to sail their ships further north.
What they did at the end - as there was no way around all the falls - they built a short railway line across Don Khone, dismanteled their ships in the south, transported them to northern Don Khone, reassembled the boats and launched them to the water again.
The old locomotives and leftovers of the tracks can still be seen nowadays (some people use old tracks as fences for their properties).

We continued to the southern most point of the island via a tiny walking path through the jungle which was probably not made for bicycles, but it was fun :).
Down in Ban Hang Khone we took a boat to go and see some of the very rare Irrawaddy dolphins that live in Asian rivers and coastal regions. There were only around 3-5 left in the waters between Laos and Cambodia, but we were lucky and saw two of them swim around. They did not do the classic dolphin jumping, but we were still able to see their roundly formed heads and noses.

After a quick lunch next to the river we continued our ride on an equally challenging path through the bush to another tiny, unspectacular waterfall and to the local "beach" on the island. It was a little sandy bay, nothing too pretty neither and the current was a bit too strong to swim in the river. We just took off our shoes and found to our surprise that the water was full of little gold scrapings. We could not belive our eyes when we saw the shiny glitter, but it is true. In Laotian rivers you can still find gold (this is the reason why the Chinese are so keen on getting their hands onto Laotian resources)!!! Moni was desperately looking for a big gold nugget that would boast our travel budget somewhere, but apart from the glitter, we did not find anything ;).

And then we headed for our last stop on the western side of the island: the Somphamit and the Li Phi Falls, an impressive and very spread range of powerful waterfalls where the locals believe the spirits of the dead are caught.
We walked along the viewpoints and sat down on yet another "beach", a little calm and sandy bay with a protected pool. The brownish Mekong water did not look too inviting for Moni, so she just put her feet into the water while Alex needed to cool off and went for a swim.

We returned before dark and that night for dinner we discovered the probably best restaurant in Laos where we would eat 3 nights in a row - The Gardens. A tiny little place with 8 tables, a short menu and only one cook, but he prepared all dishes freshly and with lots of love. We ate amazing steamed fish and grilled chicken in banana leaves, the most delicious Massaman curry and the best sticky rice with mango ever!!!

And the next couple of days we decided to be super lazy. We slept long, had breakfast, spent the morning in the hammock, maybe went for a short afternoon walk to see the two local monasteries and then went back to our balcony to watch the sunset.
Folks, that was pretty much what we did 4,5 days long and we tell you: it was amazing and much needed. There is not too much else to do on the island, so don't expect big cultural program, but if you are after peace and relaxation, this is for sure the right place.

As our visa expired we needed to make a move though. We were looking into flights from Pakse to Bangkok, but flights from/to/within Laos were just ridiculously expensive (for our budget), so we decided for another epic 20 hours journey by boat, bus, minivan and bus again to reach Bangkok. After all it was not as bad as expected (we're getting modest these days) and it saved us a hell of money.

We stayed quite some days in Bangkok to have enough time for Canon to repair Alex' camera and then got on a flight to Mandalay in central Myanmar.

Stay with us as we have quite some stories to tell about Myanmar as well. We'll try our best to publish as soon as possible.

Talk to you soon and all the best for the Christmas days,
Moni & Alex

Sunset over Don Khone island