Sightseeing On The 4000 Islands

Trip Start May 22, 2010

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep Don Khon, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, July 22, 2010

We jumped onto a boat this morning and made our way across the Mekong onto a minibus to Don Khon, one of the 4000 islands of southern Laos. We arrived at a small village late in the morning and jumped aboard another boat to take us to the island. We had been told that this village had an ATM that we could use to get money out, but were mislead so had almost no local currency left, Luckily most of the area accepted US dollars which we had, so we weren't in a heap of bother, we just had to deal with a terrible exchange rate!

We walked along the island and found a very cheap bungalow to say in. The place was very very basic and was pretty much a wooden box with a concrete room with a hose for a shower. The place however was built over the Mekong and the view was stunning! I spent a good deal of time lying on a hammock just watching the Mekong, which was running extremely quickly this time of year

On the River Again

.

We set out on foot to explore the island in the early afternoon. The island apparently has turquoise coloured waters that you can swim in, but we had chosen the wrong time of year to see this. During the wet season, the powerful Mekong was a muddy brown and far too dangerous to swim in. Instead we walked to Khon Phapheng, the largest flowing waterfall in South East Asia. We ran into Guillaume and Marion and we all made our way through the rice fields to eventually find the waterfall.

This waterfall was so powerful and so large in terms of area. I took a couple of photos and some video but they do not do it justice!! There were even locals scaling the area fishing which I could not believe as they would have no chance if the water got them!

We got caught in the afternoon storm, but luckily there was a small shop near the falls where we sought refuge. It was so hot before the rain and we had been hoping for a swim, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity to cool down in the downpour. I wasn't the only one with the same idea, as a group of young children from the area also came out to play. I probably spent about 20 minutes playing with them and building up water in the makeshift tarp roofs to pour on them

Cruisin on the Longtail

. They lost their minds when I started wetting them and were dancing all over the place. It was hilarious!!

While we were there we also met the mother of the children. She was 26 years old and had four little ones running around. They were all boys and they were all mischievous little fellows, which became more apparent when we played with the 7 month old. All of his brothers had set to him with pens. The little guy was covered from head to toe (arse included) in drawings, but didn't seemed too fussed about it!

We made our way back through the rice fields to the village once the rain had cleared and returned to our guest house to find that the light to the room and did not work and the place was leaking. The leak was not a problem as none of our stuff was near it, so I went to find the lady that ran the guest house to tell her the light wasn't working. She just smiled at me, told me she would fix it later and went back to watching TV. We then went out and found a place to eat dinner. The food was great and the couple who ran the place were really friendly. Once we were done with dinner, we made our way to our little box over the river, got the light fixed and went to sleep with the sounds of heavy rain filling the Mekong below us.

While we were going to sleep I heard noise on our balcony and went to check. The lady had come up to check on her boat which was moored at our bungalow. It was starting to fill with water, so the boys had a fun night of emptying the boat until the rain stopped.

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