Sabai-dii Loas

---

---

Sabai-dii (Greetings), this is the only thing you’ll hear from the locals in the most amazing chilled out place we’ve ever been too. Si Phan Don, its literal English translation is the Thousand Islands.

The Four thousand Islands is a stretch of the Mekong that during the rainy season stretches out to a breadth of 14km, the river’s widest point along its 4,350km journey from the Tibetan Plateau to the South China Sea, Laos is the fourth country of the six it passes through. However, during the dry season the river recedes leaving behind hundreds, if not thousands of islands and islets. The largest islands are inhabited all year round and the locals are very self-sufficient, growing all they need on the islands. We stayed on the island called Don Det which in the LP is describes as the “party island”, however, for a place that has a curfew of 11pm including lights out and the fact that up until now everything was generator run for the 5 hours of darkness from sunset until 11 and plus the fact that its SOOOO chilled out, to us it didn’t feel like a party place whatsoever just the most chilled out place ever.

To get here we made our way from Kratie in Cambodia, it took about 5 hours by bus and one little boat. To be honest if it wasn’t for the charging of $1 per stamp at passport control on both sides of the boarder we wouldn’t have even noticed we’d crossed the border into Laos.

Our home for the next 4 nights was Sunset Bar and Bungalows, run by a lovely chap who just goes about his business pottering all day. We had a lovely bungalow right on the Mekong for a budget busting one pound fifty. Admittedly it was a bungalow with just a bed in and mosquito net, the amenities were shared but as there were only 4 other bungalows it wasn’t a problem at all. We didn’t even need a fan, as we soon found out on the first night when the evening breeze swiftly swept through our bamboo walls, requiring G to get her sleeping bag out and T regretting chucking his in Cambodia. Hows about that for eco friendly!!!! Oh and it had two hammocks, yes that’s right two, one each!!! G was very happy because last time we had hammocks there was only one and she had to sit on the floor!

We must add that two days into our stay we witnessed the turning on of electricity, this was the first time the island has had a supply of electricity that was not generator powered, so wherever you went stereos and TVs were blaring out of the locals homes and the purchasing of fridges was quite frantic for all the cardboard boxes we saw!!!! We hope this doesn’t change the atmosphere too much having electricity here but the locals have a right to move with the times. This one Aussie guy who runs the best bakery ever on sunrise strip was so excited he cracked open a beer when he flipped the switch on in the morning!!!!

Anyway we spent 4 wonderful nights here pretty much doing nothing but swinging in our hammocks, drinking and eating. We went out for a few meals with a couple we met in Cambodia, Serina and Matt and spent every night back at our gaff watching the sunset over the Mekong. One night we pre-ordered a fish meal (you have to tell them 24 hours before so they can catch your fish in the day). The meal was divine, consisting of steamed fish in banana leaf, BBQ’d fish and yummy fishcakes, to go with all this was sticky rice, washed down with the coldest Beer Laos, all followed by a very sickly yummy chocolate pudding. For those who are interested a large bottle of beer here is 10,000 kip, that’s about 75p!!!

With all this lazying around we felt the need to be energetic for one of the days, so we walked across our island to Don Khon the neighboring island to have a look at a waterfall there called Tat Somphamit (to the locals Li Phi Falls). Li Phi means trap spirit and the locals believe the falls act as just that, a trap for bad spirits of dead people and animals, there’s no swimming here because the locals see mixing with the dead is tempting fate just a bit too much!!!!

Our walk to the falls took us along an old railway track the French left behind, which clearly isn’t used now as there’s hardly any track to be seen. It took us a fair while in the heat to walk there and back. Being rewarded with the sight of the falls when we got there was amazing, they were really very fierce rapids, we tried to find this cove everyone told us about but all we found was a beach with sand reminiscent of sinking sand and the water far too near the current of the falls so we ditched the idea of a swim!!! On our way back we were treated to many Sabai-dii’s from a group of very drunk local woman, we presumed they’d finished harvesting the rice for that day!!!!

All in all we had the most amazing time here, a perfect introduction to country number 16 of our travels, we just wished we had stayed there longer!!!!!

---

Comments

[Tom Jeffery]

Not to weird you out but I swear that is the exact same bungalow I stayed in, 3 years ago!!!! Can't believe they finally have electricity tho, my room worked off a car battery :-)

[Tony and George]

no way
ha I can't beleive that ha!!! Great place though!!!