Advertisement
Published: October 30th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Once accross the border we were met by 3 guys in a new minivan with A/C, we guessed from the start we were gonna like Loas. We travelled the 45 mins along a very bumpy track to the small boat port which serves the islands and all packed onto a small narrow boat and headed to our home for the next few days, the island of Don Det. Don Det is one of the few inhabited islands of the group named the 4 thousand islands, so named because during the rainy season the river gets so high it engulfs the land forming many many islands.
Once on dry land we headed out to find a room for the night. The only accomodation on the island is a bunch of family run bungallows basically built on stilts over the river with a hammock out on the veranda. We checked a few, many were full, and settled on one run by a guy from the UK. The bungallow was basic, a bed with mozzie net and the aforementioned veranda and hammock. The shared toilet and shower was accross the path and the electricity comes on at 6pm and goes off at 11pm.
All this for the pricely sum of $1, yes about 50p. We settled in and before we knew it (and had time to get our torch out) it was dark and even though we had a light on our veranda we didn't in our room. We managed to get ourselves sorted and headed out for a drink and some food which was super tasty, the food wasn't bad either 😊 then headed back to our now very dark accomodation.
The next morning we decided we would have a more thorough look at the accomodation on offer, within 30 sec we had found a new bungallow with a light and plug socket in the room and get this..........and ensuite shower, sink and toilet. All for the increased price of $3, yes 1.5 pounds. Still the same electricity times as before but that is the same accross the whole island so couldn't realy complain.
We then hired a couple of bikes to explore the island and the neighbouring island Don Khon, which has a rather impressive waterfall and a rather unimpressive beach. The main thing we noticed was how friendly the people are, they all say hello and the kids
just go crazy waving. There aren't too many tourists on the island either due to its remote location in Loas so it realy felt like we were witnessing the locals in their own environment. A bit of hammock time was also on the cards and we both promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours (just like the locals) and then relished the fact that when it went dark our generator kicked in and we had light....ah bliss.
We spent the next few days getting up at around 7am (crazy i know) and generally walking around the island in the morning in the beautiful sunshine, followed by an afternoon of reading books on our hammocks, then heading out for some food and drink. We were ususally in bed by 9 fast asleep as the island is just soooo laid back and sleepy. You could easily lose a few months here if you weren't carefull and some people we met had, they just couldn't get the energy up to leave. We endevoured to see the sunset and got one of the local guys (strangely named Mr Egg, he had 2 little kids we called mini eggs, he he) to take
us out but it gets quite cloudy in the evening so it turned into more of a boat trip around the islands which was nice.
One of my main aims on the island was to try and get one of the restaurant owners to show the rugby world cup final (yes they have satelite!) but as it was to be shown at 2am and they only have electricity until 11pm it was a bit of a no go. Even if he was allowed to switch his generator on that late (which would have woken the whole island) i discovered he didn't actually have the right channel either. I checked the next day on the internet (yes they have internet!) and was disapointed we lost but kinda glad as i would have been even more gutted if we won and didn't get to see it.
After a few days we decided it was time to move on so we booked our ticket up to the capital Vientiene which involved a slepper bus (with actual beds) and said our goodbyes to our very nice guesthouse owners who when we left tied a basic bracelet around our wrists and wished us
good luck, Just a beautiful experience. We were excited to move on but very sad to leave, we will definitely be visiting the 4 thousand islands in the future and we hope it doesn't change too much.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.173s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 12; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0836s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb