29/10/10 Pakse to 4,000 islands (Don Khon)

We all got dumped at the bus station at 6am, and the guy there demanded our tickets, which they took of us at the bus station, ended up having a heated debate with the Laos guy, I can't stand the Laos people, so rude.

Was all good in the end and ended up in our own mini bus heading towards 4,000 islands. The bus journey was pretty funny as our most things with this group. The boys ended up eating crickets on a stick for fun, it's really funny watching them try and out do each other all the time.

When we got to the port for the island, 11 of us got bundled in a wooden long boat to the island with all out bags, was funny us all trying to get in without falling in, was hard work. The islands are sand bars in the Mekong delta, some of which were inhabited. A couple of the islands have electricity powered by generators.

Arrived at Don Khon about midday and had a beer to celebrate, while the guys found us somewhere to stay. All staying together in small rooms over looking the Mekong delta, we have hammocks outside our room so we can just lie and watch the river go by, so thats what I did all afternoon.

Dinner here was amusing, the South Laos is very laid back, the guy in our restaurant was the waiter, cook, and also owned the small shop across the road, so dinner takes at least 2hrs to arrive. As well as taking so long, you never actually get what you order as their English is really bad, and if they dont have it on the island when you order it, you have had it! They seem to get the small children to serve us as well, because their English is better, but they inevitably get it all wrong.

ROF tonight to celebate our arrival on the island. Best one so far, new rules were invented including I pod master which got very out of hand, good times,

30/10/10 Don Khon 4,000 islands

No hangover this morning! Went for breakfast, ordered peanut potatoes which were actually good, if not really random. No milk here so you have to have condensed milk in your tea, I could think of worst things to drink.

As there is nothing to do here (which is really nice) we decided to go for a walk across the bridge to the neighbouring island. When we got there there was a little festival and boat race for the locals which was cool to watch, we also found some pumpkins and props for our haloween party tomorrow night. Managed to hitch a lift home with some locals, we were quite the novelty.

We all went to the neighbouring island for dinner. An English gut who lives on the island took us across on his long boat, he put 12 of us in there, apparently thats the most yet! What didn't help was that he was drunk and then had about 15 beers over dinner and loads of weed before he took us back over the river in the dark. When we got to the other side he fell in which I found very satisfying as the guy was an idiot.

31/10/10 Don Khon 4,000 islands

Rented some bikes today and went cycling around the island, I managed to drive into a tree. Went is search of the rare fresh water dolphins but didn't manage to see them. Had a haloween party was so funny. All got costumes from what we could find on this small island, we had to be pretty inventive. There was a lot of whiskey and haloween based drinking games, was alot of fun.

1/10/10

Last day in Don Khon doing absolutely nothing, lush!