Si Phan Don (4000 islands)

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After a few hours on a bus we got a short boat ride to Don Det in the four thousand islands. This is where the Mekong River fans out and shit loads of river islands are created, don't know whether there are 4000 but probably if you count every rock. They managed to chuck my, and a few other peoples, bags in the water which was a bit worrying but was only really my clothes that got wet, and clothes can dry out as you probably know. The part of the island we stayed on is very backpackery but also fairly small and chilled out. We went for a walk around the rest of the island when we arrived. The idea was to have a wander and stop off at a few bars but after about 3 miles we saw only a few locals houses and farmland so the backpacker section is pretty concentrated. That night we went for a meal in a quiet part before going to the only bar with much atmosphere. We met some English & Dutch people and spent a few hours drinking in the bar and on the small beach (since the bars close at 11 here). The next day we got up late and rented a canoe (the full on long wooden type) to have a look around ourselves. It was pretty fun but we didn't get as far as we wanted. We'd forgotten about the current so we couldn't go one way otherwise we couldn't get back and going against the current was hard work. We managed to stop on a couple of sandbars on neighbouring islands and have a swim though. That night we walked down to a 'full moon party' which we'd heard mentioned the night before. This was actually an annual local temple festival in a field. There was a stage with some terrible singing, lots of stalls and people just milling around. We stayed long enough to soak up the atmosphere but on a sober night there wasn't a whole lot to do unless you happen to like shrieking singing and panto. The next day we did a trip to see the rare Irwaddy dolphin in a section of the river next to the Cambodia border. Apparently there's only 100 or so left in the world and we managed to see a few, even though it was just a few spraying heads and backs in the water. We also saw the biggest (in terms of water volume) waterfall in S.E Asia. The impressive thing was the power of it but they looked more like rapids than actual falls. It was ridiculously hot that day, must've been 40c and it probably didn't drop much below 30c at night. Just sitting there eating dinner left us sweating like crazy. We were given tips by a couple at dinner for South America as we sweated which were good although I ended up getting a bit of heatstroke from the day and throwing up that night. Luckily (or not) I had a full 24 hours travel to Vang Vieng to recover.

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