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Published: April 2nd 2009
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In case your all wondering, yes that sunset was as good as it looked. In fact it basically looked like that every night... I was amazing.
As soon as I arrived on Don Det which is basically a tiny little backpackers island amongst the 4000 Islands in Laos, I got a hot tip to head to the west side of the island for the best huts... basically because of the sunsets. A boy, it did not disappoint. I spent a lovely four days and nights on Don Det and once again it was one of those places 'you had to want to go to' as there was't much else around. It just on the Laos side of the boarder between it and Cambodia and about 3 hrs south of Pakse. Apparently it’s also one of the few places in the world your likely to see one of the 200 odd Irrawaddy dolphins left in the wild... I didn't see any but I did keep a look out for them.
Now don't get me wrong there were a lot of other backpackers everywhere but this is a very laid back island that has no electricity, no ATM's (of course??) a
half a dozen bars or so, a few good places to eat and heaps of dust! From what I could gather you pretty much went there to either smoke something illegal or drink?? Don't worry mum, I wasn't smoking but I did do a reasonable amount of drinking to make up for it.
In fact I actually spent a couple of the days there quite sick in bed. I don't think it was the alcohol (perhaps some bad food) but it was a couple of the worst days I have ever spent in bed. You'll notice the photo I took on one of the days I spent in bed (at sunset) with my feet in it.... that was the view from my sick bed...I guess it wasn't that bad after all hey!
One thing they did have on the island was this elaborate network of noisy generators set up which all came on around 6pm every night and then magically shut down about 4 hours later. Basically this provided a little light in each place, some music and power for the much needed internet cafe on the island. It was quite funny and everyone (including me) scrambling for
any available power point on the island when the power came on each night... madly trying to charge up the phones, ipods and computers that all backpackers seem to have nowadays.
In saying all this it was still a very relaxing couple of days with literally hours sitting around each day with nothing to do but simply enjoy a beer on the river floating around in a big rubber tube. In fact beer'o'clock magically got brought forward everyday from the normal 4pm to about 12pm!
I was also lucky enough to find this tiny little hut (for a whole AUD$3 a night), perched over the edge of the Mekong river (literally) that was basically a bed & veranda on stilts and with a couple of hammocks to boot... and it was magic. The days and nights basically consisted of trying to stay cool one way or another and boy was it hot... damn hot.
For some reason there never seemed to be any wind and you really noticed it even more when there was no electricity as normally you can find a few fans around in south east Asia... but not on Don Det. The one thing
that was remarkable though... was that they always managed to keep the beer cold.. I guess they had too or no one would go there hey!
Sorry I didn't get more pictures but as I said I spent half the time in bed quite sick. Still you get the idea with these ones.. Next stop Cambodia!
P.S I didn't count them all, but I'm pretty sure there were about 4000 islands.. lots of small ones though!
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