Don Det, Laos

Riverside restaurant on Don Kong Island

Don Det was our next destination, and is the smallest (and busiest) of the touristy islands in the Four Thousand Islands area.  We booked seats on a ten-person boat to take us from Don Khong to Don Det, which would take about an hour and half.  We were enjoying the scenery at the beginning of the boat trip when all of a sudden the boat wobbled so hard to one side I thought for sure we were going to tip over!  A bunch of us were holding our breath, and let out a big collective sigh when the boat stayed upright.  I looked back at our “skipper” and he wasn’t even fazed.  After that, I had no confidence in our boat, and unfortunately it continued to wobble the entire way.  Throughout the rest of our trip Daron and I talked about which point would be the best to swim to if the boat tipped.  Alas, all our planning was for naught, as we made it to the island safely.

Daron walking the loop around Don Det

It was two million degrees when we landed on Don Det (ok, maybe not, but it sure felt like it!).  There are no cars on the island, which is nice.  We spent some time looking for accommodation and all we could find were ramshackle little bungalows that looked like they were about to fall into the water, with bedsheets that had never seen the inside of a washing machine.  We were so hot and frustrated that we ended up splurging on our most expensive room yet in Laos, at $28/night.  It was well worth it as it had air conditioning and was spotless.  It was run by a Belgian guy who was quite a character too. To me the island felt mostly rundown - almost like since they were guaranteed a steady stream of tourists, no one needed to put any money into improving their business.  This was yet another place with happy shakes and happy pizza, so maybe that contributed to the lack of improvements.  Despite my initial misgivings, we did find pockets of goodness on the island – a couple of very good restaurants and some nice-looking bungalows on the far side.  Another plus was the amazing sunsets we saw every evening over the Mekong. 

Wilbur!

We rode bikes a couple of times during our stay there – one time around the loop on Don Det, which took about an hour.  The local community was interspersed throughout the tourist guesthouses and restaurants – we saw lots of local huts, gardens, rice paddies, and farm animals (chickens, cows, pigs, etc.).  We even had a favorite pig we visited every time we traveled in his direction – I named him Wilbur after the pig in Charlotte’s Web. :)  As we rode through the local areas, the children would smile and wave at us, sometimes even saying "hello!"  They were very cute. We rode bikes to the neighboring tourist island, Don Kong (not to be confused with Don Khong, where we stayed with Mali).  The bridge to cross over cost $2.50 per day, which kept down the number of people traveling between the two islands.  Don Kong was much larger than Don Det - we spent the better part of a day exploring it.  After the long bike ride a dip in the Mekong was necessary, just to cool off.  We wore our swimsuits into the water, as opposed to the Lao folks, who are very conservative - when they swim they go in with all their clothes on! 

Tourists on the "beach" while locals do their thing

After two nights in the expensive hotel we decided to stay in one a bit cheaper (but not the cheapie bungalows about to fall into the water) and found one for $10, a bit on the high end for this island, but it seemed nice enough.  Our first night in the new place Daron decided to take a shower and was surprised when muddy water came out of the showerhead.  Ugh!  It eventually cleared up, but made us think that the water was probably coming straight out of the Mekong.  Upon closer inspection of the bathroom, I could see that it wasn’t as clean as we originally thought, which in turn made me wonder about the sheets, if they’d been washed before our arrival (my guess is no).  I suppose if you had to hand wash your sheets in the Mekong (very labor intensive), you would only do it when necessary - very different standards from the Western world. This area is very rustic and rural - Don Det got 24 hour electricity only last year; before that it was similar to Muong Ngoi where they only had it a few hours a day. 

Daron in the Mekong

On the morning we were scheduled to leave the island we went to turn on the water in the sink only to find it had been turned off!  We had no water in the bathroom at all.  The language barrier makes these situations tricky, as most of the time the locals don't know what the heck we're saying - we feel lucky (and surprised) if we come across someone who speaks fairly good English.  Luckily we had some bottled water for brushing our teeth, washing our faces, and for a small birdbath.  I think we were both ready to leave our island getaway at that point.  We took a boat across the Mekong to the mainland where we filled out our paperwork for our Cambodia visas, then hopped on the bus to take us to our next Southeast Asia country.  Cambodia, here we come!