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Day 28 The journey to Don Det
Leaving it just a little too late to comfortably get breaky in as usual, we had it thrown into plastic bags as we jumped on a tuk tuk(15k) heading to the ferry, only to wait there for another 15minutes before it left. We got the ferry across as it started bucketing down rain, our tuktuk then dropped us off at the local bus stop which provided some shelter as we waited ... for the local bus (40k) (an experience in itself). Filled with local's and what ever they need to transport with them, one man took his hesion bag off the bus only to pull out a large rooster and then proceed to pat it, others had bags off fruit, loose pineapples, 25kg bags of wheat, crates of beer, and buckets of odds and ends. We grabbed two free seats opposite each other, Jez's neighbour initially reluctant to move his feet, got friendlier as the trip went on, gropping Jez's thigh then moving to his biceps. Unsure what this meant Jez kindly moved the mans hand away however by the third squeeze it may have been more of a hit away. However this didn't
stop Jez enjoying the Jackie Chan which was still awesome despite not including a single word of English! From here we got another ferry, then a boat (37.5k)from Don Khong to Don Det with a french couple which took another 1.5hrs. We found a resonably clean and cheap Bungalow "Billies"in between sunset and sunrise drives and grabbed some lunch before exploring the island on foot. Some kids decided to join us for a game - tap Carly on the butt then run away screaming laughter, it ended up like freeze everytime I heard them getting closer I'd turn and they run away in fits of giggles. Further along we spotted some kids swimming in the Mekong taking turns in trying to rock each other out of the boat. Realising the island was a little too big to cover on foot we settled in at Sunset Bar Carly for a Lao Lao Mojito and Beer. Here we met two English physio's Liz and Lisa and carried on with them to Mr Vaths for a few more beers, until the switched off the generator and we decided to call it a night.
Day 29
After an ordinary sleep (the hardest bed
yet!) we hired some bikes and headed off in the direction of Don Khon. Just a short ride til we reached the bridge joing Don Det and Don Khon islands. First stop was the amazing Li Phi Falls a mass of hundreds of waterfalls. We continued on to the beach, which was unfortunately dry and labelled with some signs of previous drownings we decided to turn around and grabs some lunch.
Intriged by the irraraddy fresh water dolphins we rode to the southern point of Don Khon, only to find it was going to cost another 100 kip and no-one was overly keen to take us. So instead of riding back Carly decided it would be a good idea to go via a small village only three km away. The road was smooth and awesome scenery.. until the road became a rock pit and our arms started to go numb holding on 800m felt like 8km we eventually reached the village met by some huge water buffalo, and some empty boats with no-one to man them to the dolphins and not much else! So we headed back opting for the narrower but smoother road , we passed over a couple
newly built bridges and all was going well until we arrived at the inpassable bridge. The old bridge had a couple metal struts and 3 or four planks of flat wood, the struts we fine for walking on but too narrow to wheel the bike along and the planks ran out less then 1/3 of the way across. Jez decided we could to wheel the bikes and move the planks as we went. All good in theory I must say. Jez parked his bike and went to move Carly's back in order to get to the plank of wood when his bike went hurtling to the gulley below!!! Plan 2. Retrieve Jez's bike which appeared to still be in reasonable condition given its 5m drop and push our bikes across through the mud and up the embankment to the other side. Fortunately this worked after much slipping and sliding in the mud. Next was to fix Jez's bike who's handle bars had been moved horizontally, his chain off and cog bent to buggery! Jez the bushmechanic went to it, and remarkably hammered his cog straight enough for the chain to stay on with a nearby hunk of wood, and move
the handle bars enough to steer. Remarkably we made it back to Don Khon unscathed, returned the bikes at dusk and escaped any damage costs.
Upon our return to Don Det we stumbled across a big group of children milling around something, all laughing and pointing. We stepped closer to find that the local kids had thrown a kitten to a tied-up monkey. The laughs were due to the monkey not letting the terrified kitten out of it's grasp. The monkey was at times cuddling the kitten, then at others riding it hard into the ground. An amusing sight for cat lovers such as jez.
Realising this was our last stop in Lao we decided we had better give out our two books purchased in Luang prabang. Not wanting to create Third world war we opted for single children, first the son of our guesthouse owner who we had watched catch and de-leg frogs the night before. He was very grateful.
We stopped for tea at the Monkey bar, where we met La a five year old grandson of the monkey bar. He was estatic! He ran around clutching the book to his chest and showing his Gran,
Dad, Brother and sister and someone else down the road. Eventually he read it with the help of his brother and sister and became quite upset when he wasn't able to hold the book himself. He made our night and the food wasn't bad either!
We headed in for an early night exhausted by the days adventures ready for our journey to Cambodia!
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