4000 islands (Si Phan Done)

21.6.2013

(See the big photos by clicking them)

Leaving Pakse at eight a.m. with a minibus we reached Ban Nakasang in three hours. We were still in Champasak Province, but now near the Cambodian border in Khong district (ເມືອງໂຂງ). First we left some locals to another harbour before driving fifteen more kilometers to our own harbour. This  harbour was also small, nothing like the ones with huge cruise ships and big piers. It had a few wooden boats that had seen their glory days, their colourful paints faided under the hot sun and the  wooden structures making bigger "smiles" each year. The harbour itself was muddy after the rain with some small shops spread across chaoticly. This was exactly what we were expecting to find here.

Ban Nakasang harbour

Ban Nakasang harbour. Some of the shops behind the main street.

The shops are ok to look for items you're still missing, but they don't have everything. You can also withdraw and exchange cash here, but the rates aren't the best. A shed-like ticket office was floating in the harbour, so we walked there and got our boat tickets.

The ticket office

Soon we jumped to a low and rickety boat with two seats on each row. The trip to Don Det took only ten minutes, but I felt a bit tense sitting in that small frail boat, although I knew that the locals used them all the time.

View from the boat along the way to Don Det.
The water level nearly reached the edges of the boat.

The American couple in the bus with us was also on the same boat again. I sat next to Donna, who adviced us on how to sit on the boat so that it won't capsize. While on the boat she and Lance told us stories about the Don Det island where they have lived for years now. As we hadn't booked any place to stay we thought about checking out the place where the couple is staying. Paradise guesthouse is owned by a local family, but Lance and Donna help them out with the tourists, as they live there and can speak English with the tourists. They showed us around and let us know the rules around here. Nearly everyone on our boat decided to stay at the Paradise.

We've never stayed in such a primitive bungalow before that was also as cheap as two euros per night! With such a price don't go looking for the usual hotel room amenities; carpets, towels, AC, toilet, shower, soap, safety box, lock on the door, mirrors, closets or clothes stands.

The bungalows are attached to each other

The bungalow only included a worn outlet on the wall, a small wobbly table, a fan, a bed and a mosquito net in the approximately 2x3 meters size room. The bungalow was a shock to see at first, although the internet had already shown us what to expect.

Our porch above Mekong

Our room with just bed in it

The most shock must've come from the condition of the bungalow. It mostly looked like an old shack with gaps everywhere and no paint on it, except the door. The porch was the same and it was hanging above the Mekong river. I imagined it sliding and crashing down to the river. If I dropped something through the gaps it would drop in Mekong and be lost forever. So better not drop anything on the bungalow floor.

The gaps on the floor

Information and advice.
Do not dive into the Mekong river from the porch!

We had a somewhat hysterical laugh at first about the bungalow, but decided to stay and see if we'll manage there. We have, after all, experience from something very similar. Finns spend summers in their summer cottages; some without electricity, TV or AC, have a toilet outside in the woods and mosquitos bother us everywhere. Our own summer cottage is very traditional without electricity, we have to carry water from the lake and the toilet is outside. I was pretty sure we'd manage.

Our bungalow was number five. The neighbours around us were a Dutch couple, English girls, a South-Korean girl, Germans and Lance and Donna. Bungalow number nine remained a mystery. We all shared one bathroom and a toilet in another building. You had to have your own toilet paper, which we later found out is a common practise in China as well. Not such a nice thing to carry around everywhere. The shower water came straight from Mekong, which is not clean. We saw the sewage pipes closeby go straight into the river, where people were bathing. There were some rain water barrels next to the shower, so maybe that is used for showering as well.

Paintings by the family, Lance and Donna at the washing facilities.

Paintings by the family, Lance and Donna at the washing facilities.

Restaurant/living room area. We could use the
restaurant fridge at least to some extent.

Restaurant and living room

Paradise has a so-called Book of Honour, where customers write down the items they've taken from the house and pay them later. You could refill your waterbottles and have icecubes and there's a book exchange corner.

The book of honour

Soon we settled on the porch hammocks after the tiring minibus trip. Everyone else settled in as well. We watched the Mekong river flow by and the scenery was exotic. I was happy to be close to nature again and in new surroundings. In all its simplicity I still felt like I'm going to love Laos.

A big praying mantis paid us a visit soon after settling down. It jumped on the camera when Kari was trying to photograph it. Maybe it saw its own reflection on the lense and thought it was an enemy. Asia has a lot of things that are bigger than elsewhere. So was this fellow, it was about the size of my hand. Everything seemed to be at least the size of my hand or bigger, for instance a spider about 10 cm long, a snail 25 cm long and the butterflies are so beautiful and big!

A big praying mantis paid us a visit

One of them big spiders in Asia

We lazed about the first day and walked to the other end of the island to see the sunset. Our bungalow was on the sunrise side of the island on the quiet side, while the sunset side is the party side. We didn't expect to find this many services on the island as seen on our walk, but it was nice to know you could at least find something. We had come quite well prepared here though.

Walking to the sunset side of Don Det

A locals house

Shops and restaurants

The sunset tip of Don Det with restaurants

A fancier hotel at the sunset side

For lunch we had coconut-curry vegetable stew, bruschetta and spaghetti next to Mekong. They were good, but we had to wait for an hour for them and as we finally got them we still hadn't gotten the starters. Later we found out that it is very common here to get the starters last. We were glad to find out that Don Det has food for vegetarians and it was good.

Later we had a pumpkin burger in our own restaurant. It was praised among everyone so we had to taste it, and it was very good. We ate it a few times. The pumpkin patty is the size of 15x15 cm, so there's plenty to eat. They served it next to the burger.

The pumpkin patty on right, it was so good!

The tasteful and healthy ginger tea

The host family of Paradise is interesting. Most of the chores are done by Dam (the wife, pronounced Lam). Her husband mostly just fishes, takes care of the boats and makes dinner for himself. Dam cooks, does dishes, serves, paints, cleans, takes care of the kids, handles the hotel business etc, so she works from half six a.m. till ten p.m.! And while we were in Don Det she had the fourth baby on the way and was still working too much. Her husband is so funny, we mostly saw him walking around in the garden half naked in his underpants. One of their boys, Bong, has a down syndrome and he is so sweet, he was always singing in the garden and he loves to dance to beautiful ladies. He even danced for me, which was very sweet. Sometimes he walked around without pants though and he loved to do magic tricks.

Family house

Family house

Bong is the lovely bloke, who's very creative.
Great shirt, by the way ;)

Paradise people

Paradise children

One morning I walked into the restaurant and was shocked to find the smallest girl Peo hacking a yoghurt cup with a huge knife, with her fingers on the hacking range. I wanted to stop her, but her mom laughed at us and said it was ok, while watching her youngest play a dangerous game. Luckily nothing bad happened. We were told that the kids are allowed to play with kitchen knives and machetes in order to learn to use them at an early age. And I thought our childhood was dangerous.

Peo hacking a yoghurt cup with a huge knife

On the first morning we hadn't yet figured out how many nights we were going to be here, but it was ok for the family, they didn't even ask how long we were going to stay. We booked two more nights and only put down our initials to the book, no passport details or last names. How easy was that! At the time we went to Don Det (June, 2013) you couldn't book Paradise from the Internet.
Maybe because of the nature of the place, with travellers coming and going irregularly, there wasn't housekeeping at all while we were there, but we only stayed a few nights, so in our case it wasn't necessary.

Instructions how to use a Finnish sauna at Don Det.
It wasn't there anymore on our visit though.

A scenery from our bungalow

A scenery from our bungalow

Don Det had a 7 kilometer railway to Don Khone island. Built by Mekong Exploration Commission and operated by Lao State Railway authority, it opened in 1893 and closed either in 1940 or 1949. The railway transported vessels, freight and passengers. This railway held the title for the only railway ever built, opened and operated in Laos until 2009, when a railway was opened between Nong Khai, Thailand and Thanaleng Railway Station, near Vientiane.

Some island cars

Piggy break

Decided to cycle to the neighbouring Don Khone island to see the Som Pha Mit (Li Phi) waterfalls. The roads are sandy everywhere and sometimes muddy depending if it has rained, and we had some muddy paths. Mostly the roads were in good condition though.
Cycling to the waterfalls took about thirty minutes. When you cross the bridge between the two islands you have to pay a small fee.

The bridge and waterfall fee

The bridge between Don Det and Don Khone

View from the bridge

Water buffalo 

Li Phi is wide and impressive, although because it hadn't rained much they weren't as impressive as they usually are on a rainy season, which is between May to late September. Surprisingly we also found sand dunes nearby, where the rain water had carved nice canyons.

Li Phi waterfalls at Don Khone

Li Phi waterfalls at Don Khone

Li Phi waterfalls at Don Khone

Don Khone sand dunes

Local kids swimming

Rest area near the waterfalls

As we still had some time before sunset we decided to cycle over to the Old French Port further away to see the endangered and rare irrawaddy dolphins on the Laos-Cambodia border. This route took more time than our first route and we were hoping to make it back before sunset.

The road to the port. We stopped a few times to 
listen to the sounds of the jungle.

View along the way

The port museum.
The Second World War in 1939 appears to have sealed the fate of the railway, the last train reported to have run in 1940. However, one source places the closure around 1949, believing the railway was used by the Japanese during the Second World War.

The port

The port

At the port we rented a local boat with about 60 000 kip (6,5 euros in October 2015) for about an hour. If you want to go to the Cambodian side where it's easier to see the dolphins, you have to pay more and it's not really legal going there from here. We decided to stay on the Laos side and hoped to be lucky.

It felt like being on a National Geographic journey. We were organizing everything by ourselves with the locals who didn't speak English at all or just a few words, and we were in the middle of nowhere in an exotic place for a European. I was excited to say the least, waiting anxiously to see those beautiful freshwater dolphins I've only seen on TV so far. The rickety boat gave more thrill to the dolphin chase, wondering how well it will carry us on the water.

Our rickety boat

We saw a few irrawaddy dolphins from far. They came to the surface a few times and blew water from their blowholes. I wished we would've been on the Cambodian side, where you could've swam with them! We didn't get any pictures of them, only some bad video. The area between Laos and Cambodia is really beautiful with the hills and the small island patches.

The Cambodian side

Small island patches and rocks

The Mekong river sometimes turns quite red in colour

We didn't quite make it back to Don Det before dark, so for a while we had to cycle back in the moonlight and some random lights coming from local houses or restaurants.

Later we had a really noisy thunderstorm and our friend Lance had to stop his concert for us with his guitar, as we just couldn't hear him at all! Then we lost the electricity, so we sat in the candlelight the rest of the evening. The local kids loved to dance and sing to the music. The electricity came back in the morning and it was sunny and warm, but cloudy. While we were in Don Det it was cloudy most of the time.  

We had a surprise at Don Det too. The Jersey couple we met in Pakse had arrived to Don Det as well, so we spent some time together one evening. They seemed to have similar plans like us, so we could've as well travelled together, but as we were ahead of them and leaving soon we again had to say goodbye to them. Surprisingly many people travel the same way in Laos, so who knows, we might see each other again somewhere in Laos.

25.6.2013

Had to continue back to Pakse today if we were gonna hold on to at least some schedule to see more of Laos. Our plan was to continue to Thakek next. We said goodbye to the family and Lance and Donna, hoping to come back someday to this relaxing nice island and to see the people again who had been so nice to us.

Donna and Lance

The wake up was around eight o'clock and although we thought we were in a bit of a rush to catch the boat, our ride picked us up late and when we arrived to the Nakasang harbour we still had to wait around for three hours. 

While waiting we got to follow a "reality show" around us. A Japanese tourist, who had been waiting for three hours already to catch his ride, complained to the company employee about it in a modest fashion, and we couldn't believe the response he got from the employee. He started cursing the tourist and badmouthing him! How wonderful. His behaviour was soon explained; the company employees were drinking heavily around the corner! We were wondering about the noise we'd heard before, and now found out they were making it. They were yelling at each other and one of them puked in the toilet. How nice. I hoped none of them were driving.

Loading the minivan

A minivan arrived about two hours later, but we couldn't fit in it. We said goodbye to our friends, who stayed with us in Paradise. Finally after being three hours in the middle of the chaotic "reality show" we were told that a family on their way to Pakse will be picking us up. So we caught a ride in a family car with a small kid. The family didn't speak English, so we couldn't talk much with them.

Riding the family car

The trip to Pakse took four hours, all in all our travels today took 7 hours, so after arriving to the city at six p.m. the day was nearly over. It was a luxury to be in a real hotel room again with a clean bathroom and not having to worry about the Don Det bathroom mosquitos. The Don Det bathroom visits were actually quite funny; while you were balancing above the dirty toilet seat (didn't want to sit down on a puked seat) your other hand was busy holding on to your own toilet paper roll (nowhere to put it) and the other hand was busy whacking mosquitos. Meanwhile the air was fresh from the manure smell coming from the farm behind the bathroom. How's that for an experience!

Another good thing being in a hotel is not having to worry about your hut tumbling down to the Mekong or dropping something to the floor, where it finally drops into Mekong. I managed to drop one coin to Mekong, so I had a huge wishing well!
The cities are also easier places to be if you really hate the mosquitos.

Even with the absence of (some) modern things and hygiene I always appreciate the adventure. I even like to search it. I recommend everyone to go out and try something out of their comfort zone and live in a modest way for a while. It changes you for good. A big truth lies in the words of the wise Swedish person who had written to our bungalow door "starvation is good for your soul". Collect those thrills and occasionally starve a little on the way. You'll thank yourself for that.

In the next blog; back in Pakse and off to the caves of Thakek.