Sweet Don Det
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2008
1
28
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Don Det,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Longboats on the Mekong at Don Det
. Things were looking good but by the time we left they had managed to fit 33 of us on the thing plus a rooster, a hen and some chicks (they were in a box next to me at the back) and assorted bags and boxes of produce and other goods, including a new Samsung 27" colour TV. The luggage was on the roof. I think this particular sawngthaew is designed to seat 18 comfortably, maybe 21. Most of the passengers were from Ban Nakasang, the village where we would get off to catch our boat to Don Det. For three hours I was unable to move and my knees became locked in a sitting position. The locals were good natured and smiled at us a lot. By midafternoon we were checked into our 40,000 kip bungalow at the Thon Dom Family Easy Living Bunglows on the sunset side of the island. Nothing special. A wood bungalow situated right on the shore of the Mekong about three metres above the water with two hammocks on the deck and a fantastic view. The furniture consisted of a bed and a mosquito net. Bathrooms are shared. No hot showers and power only from 6 to 10 p.m. Don Det looks a bit like a resort town with quite a few bungalows and guesthouses lining the southern third of both sides of the island . It has a little mainstreet with all the conveniences, including internet that costs about four times what it costs in the city which oddly enough is just as fast. There are no cars, just a few scooters and lots of bicycles
Longboats on the Mekong at Don Det
. You can rent a bike for just over a dollar a day. We decided to maintain vacation mode and stay for five days after which time I would head back up to Vientiane to catch a flight to Hanoi and Vanessa would carry on to Cambodia. Turns out Tony, my Auzie buddy, and Steph from the Chang Mai trek were also in town for another day, as was most of the crazy south African posse. We joined them and a few others for a Laos style bbq chicken dinner at their guesthouse and later moved on to a party on the beach. We would have dinner with them again the next night before they all headed off in different directions. Seems a bit like the end of a chapter as I had been running into these guys on and off since Pai in Thailand over a month ago. Laura and Bianca have been traveling for two years and will be heading home soon. Tony goes on to Nepal and then Europe.
The next few days it was chill, chill, chill. We swam in the Mekong a couple of times. I shudder at the thought of how poluted it must be. It stinks when you dive in. The shower water comes directly from the river. It was hot as hell, I'm guessin' 40 or so. One day we rented bikes and rode across the bridge to the adjacent island, Don Khong. There you can see a waterfall and catch a boat to see the supposedly 'rare' Irrawaddy dolphins
View from our Balcony
. We were fortunate enough to see some but at a great distance, so I could hardly tell they were Irrawaddies. At least the boat ride was nice. We walked around a lot. We continued our tradition of late afternoon fried spring rolls and beerlaos. We ate well. We tried pumpkin burgers for the first time. Internet was four times the price it is almost everwhere else in Laos but it was just as fast if not faster. The family running our guesthouse was strange. The daughter who I would suppose is around 20 something would only sneer when I said hello. When you asked for something like a beer or water, she'd just wave at the cooler and blurt somehing out loudly to nobody. I think they got mad at us when we took our laundry down the street to a place that charged less. We ate out at other places.
It's funny what becomes normal. You are sitting in a restaurant enjoying cool refreshing ice coffee and a chicken walks through and it doesn't faze you. Or like when you are walking down a road through a village and a pig crosses the road in front of you and you don't think about it. The mossies weren't bad. I got no bites.
I purchased a sleeper bus ticket back to Vientiane for 220,000 kip, 25 bucks or so for a 15 hour journey that would entail a boat back to the mainland, a two hour bus ride to Pakse, a six hour (boring) wait in Pakse, and a 10 hour overnight ride in a bus with beds to Vientiane (I got to sleep next to a nice young Loatian fellow.). Once in Vientiane I would take care of a few errands and purchase my flight ticket to Hanoi.
Pics are coming soon...
