Elliot left early the next day. I met up with Sarah, an Irish girl from Cork who I had gotten on well with the night before and we went down to Don Det beach. The water surrounding Don Det and all the islands is the Mekong River. During the dry season the water resides and leaves hundreds (thousands if you count every sand bank) of islands. There are a few that are there year round. It was good to relax after so much traveling!
The day after I moved to ‘Sunset Guesthouse’ where Sarah was staying. Most people staying on the island came here each day to watch the sunset. I got a little bungalow next to Sarah’s with just a double bed inside and a little balcony with a hammock hanging. There was a shared toilet and bathroom, just for $1.50 a night!! The view was just amazing! Sarah and I went and hired tubes and bikes and spent the day on the river just chilling and chatting. We were told there was a party that night in Champasak the nearest town on the mainland. We convinced everyone to go and around 10 of us set off in a long tail. We got to the mainland and transferred to a pickup. Everyone was chatting and drinking on the way there and it didn’t seem to bother anyone that it had taken nearly 4 hours to get there! What happened when we arrived was hilarious (well it is now) the ‘party’ was a huge Laos festival and our group of ten was the only ‘farang’ there. We felt like celebrities! Everyone was staring. The music was terrible – Thai pop music – but the locals loved it, dancing around like maniacs! We all just sat there dumbfounded at what was happening and that we traveled 4 hours for this. We tried to make the most of it and had a dance, which the locals loved, and then we set off back to Don Det. The journey back was horrendous! It was freezing as we were just in the back of a pick-up. Nobody spoke – it was like a survival test. I put my head on my knees and just tried not to freeze to death! When I looked around everyone was doing the same. About two hours into the journey the driver and his friend gave Sarah and I denim jackets – he was a life saver, we felt so much better and sat up and talked to each other then, I felt bad for everyone else but it was tough I wasn’t giving up that jacket for anyone! It took us four hours to get home – we must have been insane to even consider going that far for a party!
·We got back at 7am! Everyone just mumbled ‘goodbye’ and went to bed. I had a shower and got in my hammock where I slept all day. That night we had a small ‘ full moon party’ just a few drinks around a fire.
·The next few days were spent relaxing on the beach, cycling to the waterfall on the next island, Don Khon, floating in our tubes. The heat was unbearable between 11am and 3pm. We reckoned it was about 40’C. There was nothing you could except be in the water between these times.
·There was no electricity on the island and the only power came from generators. These only ran until 10pm. our bungalows had no electricity and after 6pm you had to use candles or torches to be able to see. It added to the islands magic. What we didn’t realize was how much no electricity would affect what we could eat. With no refrigerator the menu was very limited. No milk, cheese, butter or chocolate! Most evenings were spent sat around drinking beer Lao and chatting but the conversation always came around to food – or lack of it. We would discuss everything that we couldn’t have, and drive ourselves crazy!
·On my last day in Laos, a Scottish girl that I had become friends with, Cat, and I went kayaking. We kayaked about 5K to the waterfall, I was knackered! We got out at the top and carried our Kayaks down the rocks at the side of the waterfall and were about to get in what looked to me like some fierce looking rapids. I was told not to paddle and we were off! It was brilliant, crashing through the rapids, we turned a corner and went down a mini waterfall, Cats kayak nose-dived and she fell in. She was laughing bit I was really worried and tried to lift her back in. We set off again and kayaked another 5K to a Cambodian island the see the freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins. We saw them as we approached but then sat there cameras at the ready for another 1½ hrs and saw nothing! We then left for the border with Cambodia where a truck was meeting me with my bags. Cat was going back to Don Det but I was going into Cambodia. I hooked up with three French people, which was lucky as there was no one around when we arrived but then they turned up in this boat fro nowhere. We shared a minivan to the Cambodian border and then onto to a town in northeast Cambodia – Stung Treng where we stayed overnight.