We have finally made it to a beach. It's odd, I hadn't really thought about how strange it would be to go on holiday (if we're calling this a 10 month trip a holiday) and not arrive at a beach until a month into the trip. And it's the tiniest beach ever so I'm clutching at straws here anyway.

Our time in Don Det, one of the 4000 islands that dot the Mekong in Southern Laos, has been very chilled out. Which was what the doctor ordered after the craziness of Vang Vieng and the stress of Vietianne. The island is quite tiny, with accomodation split between the sunrise and sunset sides of the islands. We went with sunset (unlikely we'd be up for sunrise seeing as the bars shut at 11pm in most of Laos so though sunset would be more enjoyable) and found some wooden huts with just a bed and a fan in them. The rustic charm was short lived when we returned after drinks that evening to find that our rookie mistake of leaving the outside light on in order to see where we were going had attracted half the island's insect population to our balcony, and therefore our room and bed. I skipped on back to our friend's guest house where we'd been having drinks and reserved his room for when he checked out the next day. For 50p more we got a clean room in a brick building with an ensuite, what a steal.

I took part in my first game of Texas Hold 'Em after having watched the boys and Lily play in Vietianne and came very close to winning. Alas Lily pipped me to the post, but at least we kicked all of the boys out of the running beforehand. The night escalated with some serious drinking games aided by a bottle of Lao whisky that cost around 80p. Surprisingly good stuff considering the price; not such a smooth hangover however.

To our utter delight we spotted fellow backpackers with In the Tubing tubes, so naturally we felt it our obligation to test out tubing in Don Det. I may tube my way around the world. Alas it's not quite the same when there's a slow current, crap following you around in the current and no bars along the way to quench your thirst. Pity.

Most of our time on Don Det has been spent on the beach, catching up on sleep, waiting an average of 1.5hours for a meal to arrive, taking advantage of the warm water of the Mekong, increasing our drinking games repetoire, craving Nutella (slightly weird as I never have it at home) and subjecting half of the island to watching Armageddon in the DVD bar. Laos = done. Though there's much more of Laos I'd like to see, it's time to move onto Cambodia. Next stop - Siem Reap. x