After a quick and trouble free bus ride south from Pakse we arrived at the ferry port to 4,000 islands. We had deliberated lots about which island to stay on and in the end we decided Don Khon would be the one for us. Described by lonely planet as 'the real Laos' we went for it and got a long tail boat over to the island. On arrival we had to do a good balancing act to get out of the rocking boat safely without landing in the Mekong but once we managed it we wandered along the dirt track in search of a nice wooden hut which would serve as our home for the next few days. It was a lovely little place with chickens wandering the track and Laos people chilling and watching the day go by. Again we deliberated about which one to take but in the end we found a great little quiet spot near the bridge to the other big island Don Det. The hut was basic to say the least but at only 3GBP a night we couldnt complain. Our hut was also decked out with hammocks which we thoroughly enjoyed lazing around in watching the Mekong pass us by.

The rest of our day was spent eating (yes Ash loves the food so much here, and the price, he decided to have 3 dishes this day!) and exploring the islands on bicycles we`d hired for the afternoon. To be fair to Ash we did decide to give the young girls who were running the restaurant (whilst their mums were out back cooking) our spring rolls as 1) they were 'fresh'spring rolls which means uncooked and we didn't like them and 2) the girls were cute. They grinned from ear to ear when we offered them and shared them between 4 other little boys.

On our way from Pakse we`d met some lovely friendly Belgian travelers who we bumped into on our bikes on Don Det. They told us they were going kayaking the next day, something me and Ash had really wanted to do but was being well over charged at the place we earlier visited on our island. Once they told us the price and location of the agent we decided to go with them as they were a nice group and the price was much more reasonable. Half an hour later we`d saved 85,000 kip and were looking forward to our adventure the following day. We both had our fingers crossed we would see the endangered dolphins which were in the waters between Laos and Cambodia.