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Mar 12 - Don Det - Given we'd had an early night, we still slept in a bit, and it was eight 'o'clock by the time we'd roused and showered ourselves. We ordered breakfast (the most delicious banana and chocolate pancakes) and then set off to explore the island; which we decided to do by bike. Mama Souksan wasn't working the reception today, and when we went to ask about bike hire, I got another little reminder of how laid back Lao life is. At first I thought the reception was empty, but as I got up to the desk, a young girl unfolded herself from a bed on the floor nearby. "Sabaai-dii," she said, which is the universal Lao greeting, and blinked sleepily. "Can I help you?" After she'd pointed us in the direction of the bikes, and written down our room number, she lay back down on the bed - apparently asleep in seconds. It's all about keeping your stress levels low, here!
After a few interesting moments where we tried to remember how to cycle, we set off around the island in a clockwise direction. The guide book had sort of implied that Don Det was a very touristy island, and we'd expected it to be full of backpackers, but actually it was very laid back. It's probably a five kilometer cycle around the whole place, and we took it slowly. Don Det is surrounded by lots of slow-moving, turquoise channels of water, with sandy edges that form small beaches every couple of hundred metres. Many of the adjacent islands have huge, evergreen trees on them, and the whole visual effect is quite beautiful. The are buddhist wats scattered around the archipelago, and the saffron-robed monks were travelling along in the long-tailed boats, collecting alms and just generally going about their business. The centre of the island is mainly agricultural - with rice paddies, livestock and fields of various crops. The villagers' houses are scattered around the centre and edges, and there are a couple of schools and temples on Don Det itself. The people are very chilled out, and there's a sort of dreamlike quality to the whole place; with the Mekong lapping at the banks and the gentle sounds of rural life surrounding you.
Having said all that, tourism is obviously important to Don Det, and there are three main stretches of riverside which have quite a number of guesthouses and restaurants built on them, with more popping up all over the place - there was a fair amount of building going on. The 'Sunset Strip', where we were staying, was on the west side of the island - no surpise there! There's also a 'Sunrise Strip' on the east, which gets pretty hot early on in the morning, and so is no good for sleeping in... clearly not an option. Also, there's a scattering of bungalows and restaurants on the south bank - just facing the island of Don Khon, which is connected to Don Det by a concrete bridge built during the period of French rule.
We cycled along the dirt paths, trying to keep to shady areas; although we accidently took one road just labelled "Rocky Shadeless Path" in the Lonely Planet, which was an accurate description! We got right down to the south side, and then paid the dollar toll to cross over the bridge to Don Khon; which is slightly bigger than Don Det, and less developed - a really sleepy place. We stopped at a place called Pan's, for some delicious freshly squeezed orange juice. It was an interesting little restaurant, with some thatched bungalows on the river's edge. It also had a really memorable loo - set for some reason in the middle of the kitchen, and loosely walled with boards that didn't reach all the way to the ceiling. Like most Lao ablutions, it also functioned as a shower and general bathroom. In the midst of all the cooking and hubub, this was not a great place to have a slightly upset stomach. And that's all I'm saying.
We then made our way over to Li Phi falls, which is a gorge in the Mekong's rivercourse between Cambodia and Vietnam. Although the water was at it's lowest level, these falls are still pretty spectacular; you cycle along a couple of kilometers of dirt track, and a bridge, to get there, and come out on a sandy cliff-edge right above the falls. The drop's only about thirty meters, but the water races over jagged sandstone outcroppings, and ends up forced into a huge boiling whirlpool at the bottom, which churns the river into a kind of enormous flowing bubblebath for a couple of hundred metres downstream. There's tonnes and tonnes of water flying over the falls every second, and you can peer right down into it. Some enterprising (and daredevil!) local fishermen have built sets of bamboo scaffolds across the cliffs of the falls. They use these to set up giant bamboo fish traps right in the way of the secondary cascades of water. In the dry season, most of them are out of the main flow, but when the rains begin, they quickly fill up with all the unfortunate fish swept over the precipice by the power of the river, and the traps funnel the fish off into baskets, where they are retrieved by the fishermen (who clamber precariously out in their bare feet, to haul in the catch). It's a risky business, as somebody usually gets swept over every couple of years. I decided to climb down the cliffs a bit to get a better photo, but Cheryl had a bad feeling about the place, and went back to the mainland.
It was then that tragedy struck. I was wearing flip-flops, which were pretty sweaty in the heat of the day. The sandstone outcrops were all jagged edges - like a rubik's cube that had been mashed up - with lots of right angles pointing awkardly in different directions. My foot slipped out from under me, and I had to grab a ledge to stop myself from falling in. Unluckily, my camera was in that hand, and I had to drop it to catch the ledge. I saw everything happen in slow motion - it bounced just in front of me, then flipped over the edge - smashing into a million pieces on the rocks below before disappearing into the boiling whirlpool at the bottom of Li Phi. I was shocked, and couldn't believe it. Gingerly I stood up and climbed up to the cliff's edge. As I walked up, I saw Cheryl running down towards me. "Are you OK?" she asked. "I had a horrible thought that I could see you floating down the river." I told her what had happened, and it actually left us both feeling quite sick - I guess it was a wake up call to be more careful in these sorts of places.
Apparently, the Thai and Lao people think that these falls are a spirit trap - which capture evil spirits to prevent them causing havok. As we cycled miserably back to the main drag. I had a funny picture in my mind of the evil spirits feasting on my camera - which still had a couple of days of great photos that I hadn't yet downloaded to the laptop. Anyway - better them than me.
We had lunch at a sleepy little place on the Don Khon riverside. The food was delicious, but I felt seriously bleak about my camera. Anyway - I was told to stop whining by the boss, and we rode off to a swimming beach - a few kilometers further along the banks. The beach looked enormous. In the dry season there's probably 30 or 40 metres of golden sand winding down to the clear blue waters of the Mekong, and the bay was perfectly positioned to catch the afternoon sun. We wondered why there weren't more people sunbathing, and the answer became obvious as we stepped out onto the beach - the blazing sun had heated the dark sand to egg-frying temperature! We hopped along in our flip flops - trying to keep to the edges, and finally got to the edge. The water was clear blue - with a few longtatil boats parked along the shore - this beach was also the launch point for boatmen who would take you out to catch a glimpse of the rare Irrawaddy fresh-water dolphins, which inhabit the Mekong. We thought about taking a trip, but it was incredibly hot, and also actually too hot to lie in the sun, as the few patches of shade had been commandeered by other visitors who'd got there earlier. We walked around for a little bit, and then skirted our way back to the centre of the island.
There's a funny little narrow guague railway on Don Khon. THis was sort of left over from the days when the French wanted to build a transport artery from the tip of Thailand up to China. It derilict and rusting now, but they've a series of tracks and paths across the islands. We tried to cycle the entire way round, but some of the derelict bridges looked a step too far for our little bikes. We retraced our steps to the main bridge to Don Det and headed back to out guesthouse - this time taking a different route to catch the sun going down. We had dinner at Noy's place again, which was great - and went to sleep with the geckos hooting at us from the ceiling.
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