Si Phan Don - 4000 Islands (Don Det)

We arrived in Pakse on an overnight bus (10hrs) from Vientiane at about 6.30am and then managed to get straight on a minibus to Don Det, another 2 hours drive south from Pakse. A short long boat trip and we were on Don Det searching for a bungalow on the water. We settled on the 3rd bungalows we looked at, for about $3 per night, along with an English girl, Gee, that we made the journey with. The bungalows here are very basic - a small wooden hut with a bed, thin mattress and mosquito net, as well as two hammocks on the balcony overlooking the water. Don Det is so peaceful and quiet (apart from the farm animals - chooks, pigs, buffalo, roosters) and the views over the water from the bungalows are amazing. We had a brilliant time there during the day. Night time is a bit of a different story though! The island only has generators for power and so there is only electricity on some parts of the island from about 6pm until midnight, other parts and most of the individual bungalows have no power at all (including ours). So no lights and most importantly no fans! Which makes things a little uncomfortable at 30 degrees at night! But we survived :-)

Our first day we were shattered as we didn't really sleep much on the overnight bus, so just kind of chilled out on the hammocks and slept for the afternoon. We watched a beautiful sunset from our balcony with a couple of Beerlaos and had yummy banana muffins from an Aussie baker who has a bakery on the island and delivers cakes and bread to the whole island every evening on his bicycle! When the sun had gone down we went in search for a little nightlife - we were expecting much but literally couldn't find anywhere that was lively - of the few bars and restaurants that are there, there was only a couple of people at each. So we ate a very average Indian meal at the only restaurant on the island that had fans! :-P We joined a Swiss couple and German guy who had also made the trip from Vientiane with us.

On our second day we hired bikes headed down to the Aussie's bakery for breakfast (The pumpkin burgers are yum!) and then headed off to Don Khon, Don Det's sister island - the two are joined by an old railway bridge that the french built and used to carry freight between the islands before World War II. Don Khon is host to some waterfalls, a couple of rusted train engines and some Irrawady dolphins to the far south on the Cambodian Border. We made it down to one of the waterfalls which is one of the biggest in South East Asia, volume-wise anyway, not in height. As you can't swim at the waterfall there is a tiny beach about 200 meters away from it where we headed to cool off for a bit, although the water is pretty warm so we stayed there for at least half an hour trying to cool down and chatting to some Americans. Sadly travellers had died here before as the undercurrent is so strong, so you can only wade about in the shallows.

After a litte exploring on Don Khon we decided to head back to Don Det, found ourselves at the bakery again drinking cold Beerlaos! hehe... Here we met Sangheon, another Korean! We spent the afternoon and evening chatting to him, and since he was also heading to Phnom Penh, we booked our bus trip together.