4000 Islands - Monsoon

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I arrived at the boat pier and met a lad from France, Nico. A trainee doctor, travelling whilst he has just finished his recent studies.

We go the long tail boat across the river to Don Khong. The biggest of the islands. This is the only place with an ATM so we stocked up on cash.

From here we had to rent a long tail boat and driver to Don Det. Cost 220000KIP for the boat and it took around an hour to get there. Travelling along the mekong was lovely.

Arriving in Don Det we took the first set of bungaows, which turned out to be 'sunset view', a little expensive, we have now discvered as we are paying 50000KIP each for our bunglaows, however they are right on the rivers edge and do have views of the sunset!

We headed out on a LONG walk to the waterfalls (i'd say around 3hrs to get there) you have to cross a bridge onto the other island of Don Khon.

It was worth the walk though, the falls were great, and with it being Monsoon time the water was flowing fast, quite rapid like. There was a little sand beach there with a warm water pool area, bascially a pool area of water collected from the falls.

We spent some time relaxing there and then headed back across to outr island as the sun was starting to go down.

We stopped off at a nice restaurant for some tea and met a german lad and a girl from ecuador, so spent some time with them before heading back to the bungalows, torch in hand!

We sat and watching the lighting over the river for about an our, it was spectacular, lighting up the whole sky.

It was the first time I slept under a mosquit net, which was a little strange, but thankfully woke up with no bites :-)

There is no wifi on the island but there is this Internet cafe.

Most people are only staying a day as there are only the falls here, so I'm off again today, back to Pakse and then to a place called Tadlow, where there are more waterfalls.

Don Det is still developing, much to the upset of the locals, it would appear and i can imagine at high season the place would become a little like Vang Vieng, full of youngsters, drinking & drugs.

I may finally get some laundry some in Pakse as I am extremely low on clothes!

From Tadlow I am thinking of heading to Tha Khaek as there is a cave there Kong Lo, well worth visiting, I have been told and then I'l make my way back to vientiane for my flight out to Vietnam.

Take care

Love to all xxx

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