Saturday May 30th 2009 4000 islands

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Saturday May 30th 2009 4000 islands
We had had enough of been stuck on our island and really wanted to see some of the rest of the area so we booked a full day boat trip. Most of the more interesting features are about 15km down river on Don Det so we boarded a boat and sailed slowly down for about an hour. We came ashore on Don Det and it looked like a pretty thrown together shanty town where the locals have lashed up a couple of bungalows here and a tourist restaurant there to serve the back packers, and the river was really no more beautiful there than where we had stayed so our decision to stick to the comforts of electricity was the correct one I reckon. Once ashore we had to rent Bicycles to bring us around the island of Don Khon to an area where you headed off on a smaller boat down river to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. We sailed about 20 minutes down stream and came ashore at a little point which was actually in Cambodia and sat on the river bank and gazed into the river. The dolphins are pretty endangered and its rare to actually see them but this is the best time of year and we were very lucky, there were a good few of them about 50 - 100 meters out. They don’t actually do anything except surface every minute for air, they haven’t got anything on Fungi the dolphin in Dingle, but still least we saw them after making the trip. After that we cycled back through the rice fields and an incredible amount of buffalo to the small waterfall of the area where the Mekong travels down some rapids on one side of the island.

Our next sightseeing stop was a little train which the French had built along with a fairly substantial railway bridge between the two islands, it is actually the only railway that has ever been completed in Laos, all 2km of it, not the most fascinating of attractions, bridge is nice though and we ate just on the bank under it. After lunch it was back aboard our boat for another hour trip back up the river where we passed a herd of buffalo out for a swim in the Mekong and then a minivan picked us up to bring us to the big waterfall in the region. Now this is a very impressive sight, it’s the biggest fall in south east Asia and has a tremendous volume of water rushing down through it rock faces. Certainly the most impressive waterfall I’ve seen (yet), there was apparently an area where you could swim but we were unable to find it and the water didn’t look anything near as refreshing as the fall we swam in in Chang Mai so we weren’t too disappointed even if it was about 36 degrees and we were absolutely roasted.

The bus got us back to the island at about 5 and we arranged transport into Cambodia for the next morning. A quick look up to the sky though and the forecast looked a bit ominous and it was too long until the lightning arrived to get things started. The rain just about held out as we scarpered back down to our Guesthouse in the dark and we literally just sat down in the restaurant in ours when the heavens gave way and it felt like we were under the giant waterfall from earlier. We had our menus in our hands about 1 minute when the next excitement arrived, the power shut off and didn’t look like it was going to return anytime soon by the sounds of the Armageddon that was being unleashed outside. We lucked out by just getting to the restaurant when we did because they actually did cook us dinner by candle light and it was actually delicious, not another sole in the place either and we were home too so we didn’t have to trek anywhere in the storm.

We were still left with the problem of no electricity in our room; we might as well have stayed down in Don Det. The restaurant gave us 2 candles which was fine and provided enough light just about to read for a few hours and we had to pack our bags by candle light also. Then just as we were giving up hope at about 11.30 it all kicked back into action and the air con came into its own and chilled us enough for a good nights sleep.

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