The 4000 Islands of Southern Laos

Little fisherman, a little kid we hung out with one day fishing in the Mekong
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Si Phan Don (Lao for '4000 Islands') is a beautiful area of southern Laos, just along the Cambodian border.  It is where the Mekong River, the lifeblood of Laos, spreads out incredibely wide creating thousands of islands, large and small.  The island where I found myself for the past week was a beautiful one called Don Det.  Basically the main traveler island of the bunch, Don Det still retains a lot of the local culture and traditional lifestyle that I had wanted to see in my time on the 4000 Islands.  But I'll get to more of all that in a bit...

Riverside paradise
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Since my last blog, I ended up taking a bus (4 hrs) from Vang Vieng to Vientienne (the Lao capital, a less than thriving communist metropolis of a little over 200,000 people).  I ended up spending two night there, which was enough for me.  It was an alright place, but not too much to do or see.   One big sight was an ''Arch de Trimuph" replica (think Paris) made of concrete donated by the USA a couple decades ago to be used for airport runway construction... they decided to build a concrete eye-sore instead.  It's more comical than interesting, but it was something to do.  In Vientienne I also ran into a few different groups of friends I'd made in northern Lao, which is always fun.  Catching up, and swapping stories.  That was the more stimulating time in Vientienne.

A peaceful leg of the Mekong, alongside Don Det.
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Then I caught on overnight bus to the south.  A 11hr overnight bus to Pakse, and another 2 hour minibus down to the 4000 Islands, and a quick 10 minute ferry ride to the isle of Don Det (ferry is being generous, more like a long, skinny-ass tippy canoe with a sketch motor on the back...).  That got me on the island by about 9:30am on the 28th of April.  Within 3 minutes of stepping off the boat, still walking with my backpack looking for a bungaloo, I ran into a couple of the Aussie girls that I'd been on the slow boat with a couple weeks previously... like I said, always nice to run into familiar, smiling faces.

A typical night at the Sun Set
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I found myself a nice bungaloo on the side of the river for (20,000 kip a night, $US 2) and joined the girls for breakfast.  They were eating with a couple others, one of whom was an american dude I'd met in Luang Prabang a two weeks earlier...  Also with them were a couple nice brits who I quickly befriended too.  After breakfast they were all off to a waterfall on the next island over (Don Kohn) and I decided to join them for the day.  I was actually very tired and looking forward to a siesta, as I hadn't really slept much at all on the overnight bus, but after food and a coffee I was psyched to go ride a bike around the island, do some exploring, and jump in a nice river.  So I rented a bike ($.75/day) and joined the crew on a nice peaceful, stoney cruise along the paths that pass for roads on the islands.   We crossed to the other island on an old railroad bridge, a relic of french-colonial days, and slowly made our way to the waterfall.  It turned out to be a beautifully dramatic falls, with water comming from all part of the horizon, and some spectacularly big Class V drops that got my stomach churning just thinking about hitting it in a raft...  Then we went swimming for a bit in a massive swirling pool a ways down stream from the falls, to cool off in the sticky mid-day heat.  After the waterfalls, we cruised back to the bungaloos for a little hammock time before going out for the evening...

Sun set over the mighty Mekong
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Again, it's a generous term saying "go out" when on Don Det because it's a tiny little island.  Each night that I was on the island I found myself at the'Sun Set' which is a nice restaurant/bar right on the point of the island, overlooking the  setting sun on the Mekong.  It's one of the few places on the island open past 9pm, and was the stable congregation point for the changing group of friends that I had during my time on the island.  In all the nights that I was there I only saw one true sunset, every other night we just watched the thunderstorms slowly move in and inevitabely engulf us.  Everyday on Don Det was beautifully sunny and hot, but it rained (hard) almost everynight.  The exodus home at the end of each night was always a fun walk through the flooded muddy paths that ate filp-flops like it was their job.

River guide steering with his feet, their prefered method
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As for other daytime activities, hammock swings occupied a good chunk of everyday, a few swims in the Mekong helped  pass the sweaty afternoons, riding bikes around the island was always fun,  and just walking around was a good time too.  One day we rented a boat (driver included) and just cruised around more of the islands for a couple hours, which was a nice way to see more of the islands and some of the river dynamics.  On my last day on the island (yesterday) we also bucked down for a tour to see the famous Irradway Dolphins (rare freshwater ones, only like a hundered left...) and also another waterfall which is the highest volume waterfall in all of Asia.

Asia's highest volume waterfall
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Despite the travelers walking around, the island still retained a lot of culture.  Chickens, pigs, and naked kids running around at all times of the day.  All the houses are constructed on stilts for when the river floods, as all rivers eventually do.  Every family has a boat, which are used for transporting anything and everything.  Aside from boating, they also use the boat motors to run pumps that take water from the river to their water cisterns.  There is no electricty on the island, but some places run generators from 6pm-10pm.  That meant that to charge cameras and ipods, everyone brought their chargers out to the bar and communally took turns sharing the valuable outlets...  It's funny what becomes important to you.

That's about it for now.  There were lots of good people that I met on the island, and a bunch of different groups of friends that I had hung out with on other parts of my journey through Laos.  It really was a great place to spend some time relaxing.  The bungaloo I had was right on the main shore path, and in those first days it seemed like everytime I sat in my hammock to read a few pages someone else I knew would come strolling down the path with a smile on their face.  It was a happy place...  Now I'm back in Pakse, off to the Bolven Plateau tomorow for a few days 'til my Laos visa expires on May 9th.

Hope all is well on the home front, or where ever this may find you.

Evan

ps. again the site is not displaying all the photos for some reason... click to view more