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Published: July 12th 2006
Nakasang village.
The ferry point to Don Det and a very nice place. NOT!4th July
We were up early for our bus. The 4 of us went and climbed aboard, along with another guy from Germany. The other 3 guys, that had told Jon and Kylie couldn't make it as the banks wouldn't accept their cards so they were stuck with no money!!! (We later found out that one of the guys had to go way back up to Vientiane for some money) Shows you all how organised we are!!!
As we came to pay (it should have been 6$) the woman put us down at 10$ each. Does she think we are thick!! So 6$ it was until the others didn't show up, then it went up to 9$ each. As we headed south to the four thousand islands (this is where the Mekong river gets split up by loads of little islands) The Mekong delta!
On our way down, the driver and his mate asked us if we wanted to go and see some waterfalls!! NO! We just want to get to where we are going (he obviously would have charged us) We also picked up a traveller on the way in the middle of nowhere. His story was! Listen to this!
Smile you're on camera.
And on a boat to Don Det. "I arrived in Pakse this morning, on the 12 hour bus from Vientiane. A tuk tuk driver said I could use my visa card on the Big island of Don Khong When I got on the island I couldn't use it. He lied to me just to get his money for the journey" He then had to go back up to where he came from to try and get some money just to go back to the island.Can you believe someone would tell him that just to get a bit of money!! The poor guy.
We arrived at the ferry point of Nakasang where we got a longtail boat to the island of Don Det, that is described as 'Paradise'. We disembarked and found ourselves a nice bungalow in a field for 3$ (Just over 2 quid) Like most paradises the accomodation are mainly sheds with beds, but this time ours was a nice shed with a bed and with lino on the floor!
We spent most of our time on the island hanging out with Jon and Kylie on their shared balcony. We met up with Ronnie from Pakse too and the boys all did a bit of
fishing together. Andy caught 2 but they dropped off. Jon was the winner as he caught the biggest plastic bag!
At the resteraunt where we always sat on the balcony the people were a little loony. One young guy was obsessed with Andys head, the old lady was always chewing stuff that affected her head! But when we came to leave the old lady gave us each a bracelet for good luck.
One day we ventured out for a bike ride to the next door island of Don Khon where we reluctantly paid 9000kip entrance fee for the waterfall that we never found!
The ride was nice just going through the little villages and rice fields. We tried to get to the Irrawaddy dolphin viewing point and the waterfall, but we must have taken a wrong turning somewhere, as usual. We ended up on a rocky, bumpy track (so bumpy that our arms were hurting from being shaken so much)for about an hour going. On the return journey we came across some major obstacles, such as bamboo bridges and fences.
Basically we did nothing for 2 and 1/2 days. The island was really good,
I wouldn't have said it
was paradise, but it certainly was nice and different.It was like living in a village, lots of buffalos, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cute kids and not many travellers. It was very quiet! The generators came on at 6pm and lights went out all over the island at 10ish. It was the darkest dark ever. The wildlife noises at night were truly deafening.
We never saw the people who ran our guesthouse until the day we left we thought we would wander to the boat and see what happened. They soon caught up with us!
This island was said to be the Khoa San road of the islands, but it was so quiet and the accomodation was the same as on the other island even though Don Khon was supposed to be more up market!
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Cara
non-member comment
I miss asia
you two look like you are having an amazing time, it makes me miss asia, the hammocks especially! keep safe xox