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We left early the next morning on a double bamboo raft type ferry type thing with all the daily commuters who were going to work - scooters and all! We then got a mini bus (we ended up on the end of row ejector seat type things again!) to 4000 islands in the very south of Laos. The roads were petty bumpy and things had gotten a lot less developed since we had left Pakse and it was really lovely to get see real local life and talk to proper villagers. Because of the massive storm the night before, when we arrived at the ferry point to go over to Don Det it became very apparent I would be wishing that the worlds heaviest bag weren’t so heavy! (I know, yes, we can put them on our backs but I’m just too idle to get all the straps out!) By the time we finally found ourselves a guesthouse that wasn’t just a little bamboo box us and the worlds biggest bags were covered head to toe in mud! After a nice shower we spent the afternoon reading where to go next in out hammocks over the Mekong - Heavenly. Don Det
was a very sweet place, we rented a couple of bikes and spent the day discovering the neighbouring islands and waterfalls. After about ten minutes of cycling down the wrong very bumpy road I got a puncture so we started the slow and painful walk back over to our guesthouse. Luckily after about ten minutes we came past a small village where an old man was fixing his own bike, he spoke brilliant English and said he would mend my tyre, but his was wife wasn’t too happy that he was helping falang, well that’s what I reckon she kept saying as she angrily glared at us the whole time!!! Twenty minutes and $3 later we were back on the right path and made our way to Li phi falls. I wasn’t expecting amazing things but as we crossed the bamboo bridges we came to a pretty big and pretty fierce waterfall. The Limestone around it was incredible and the ferocity of the water was pretty amazing considering a few km upstream the river is hardly even moving! When we climbed down a bit we saw all the locals fishing way down the rocks and there were even small bamboo
bridges between the peaks - no way would I be going across any of them. We cycled down a bit further and came across a very sweet little café where the lady spoke amazing English; we had a coconut to cool off and then her husband took us down the rocks to go fishing with him and his mates. I made it about 100m across and then we started to go down towards the river, being a total chicken I decided to stay and sunbathe at the top while Tel went down and fished with the boys. After about half an hour we made our way back onto flat land and cycled down a little further to a little pathway to a big beach and the river. The current was a bit to strong to swim in so we went back up to the café for fresh steamed river fish and sat and watched the hen and the chicks and the dogs and the cats and cows wander around. From here we cycled won to the beach where supposedly you can see the very rare Irrawaddy river dolphins. We made it down to the beach and sat and waited for
the dolphins to appear but no sign. It was a pretty decent ride back so we decided to go out on a boat in the morning and try and spot them. We had a very early night (the generators only run 6-9pm!) and went to meet the guy who we were going out with. Because it’s now rainy season it seems very quiet everywhere so instead of going to see dolphins directly, we ended up going on the minibus to the Cambodian border and then the dolphins!!!??!! I so started to panic as it looked like we were just going straight over with everyone else, I only had a scarf - let alone my passport but luckily he dropped them all off and we went out on the boat. The guy took us out for about fifteen minutes right to the Cambodian border (again- but by boat now!) and dropped us off on a big rock, he told us where to look and then went to sleep in his boat. After about ten minutes far in the distance we could see movement and then we saw two or three jumping and splashing around, they were too far off to take
a picture of but as there are supposed to be less than fifty left in the Mekong and about 200 in the world I felt pretty lucky to have seen them at all. We then got the boat back and headed over to see yet another waterfall, this one had to be pretty impressive as it’s the biggest by volume in south east Asia Tat Somphamit - whit woo!! We then went back via yet another boat to Don Det and spent the afternoon in the hammocks at the reggae bar who had the best hangover breakfast I have ever seen - I didn’t partake though as I had a clear head!! (one for you Luce?). We went back to the hut and packed up our stuff ready for the mammoth two day bus journey to Siem Reap!! Time to say goodbye to Laos.
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