We arrived on one of the '4000 Islands' after taking a bus from Pakse to Naka Sang, then a boat across to Don Det. Si Phan Don is group of islands on the Mekong river. Located in the south, literally just before the boarder of Cambodia. Boarder-police boats patrol the river regularly.
We met Svante (from our trip in the treetops) on the boat from Naka Sang and after disembarking we all decided to hunt around for accommodation. Svante was a gentleman, letting us take the only available bungalow at the first recommended guesthouse called 'Saengchanh' which was located right on the riverside.
We were shown to the very primitive bungalow by a guy called Adrian, from the UK. He was possibly in his seventies, but could've been older. To be honest he was in a bit of a state. He propped his emaciated body onto a chair on our balcony, and started a sales pitch for a book he'd written. He then shot us a toothless smile and said "do you guys smoke weed? I can do you a good deal along with the book". We weren't sure what to say at this point. He went on, "I've smoked twenty joints for the last thirty years, and look at me, I'm fine". We both looked at each other smirking, we could barely contain our laughter! We managed to compose ourselves though, and politely declined his offers.
We grabbed a bite to eat with Svante at 'Mama Leua Guesthouse & Restaurant', a place we were all hoping to stay at, but they were fully booked. It was a very nice place, like our accommodation it was located on the sunrise side, but further down, in the slightly quieter part of the island. We both had a noodle dish, although a little pricey, it was very tasty and well presented.
On our way back up the island we bumped into Anna (also from our ziplining tour). She was with her polish man, as she referred to him, a guy she was sharing a bungalow with on the sunset side. We all arranged to meet later that day for a drink at sunset.
It was only a fifteen minute walk to the otherside. We met at a place called 'Oi's' for a beer or two and watched the sun go down. Unfortunately the sunset wasn't great, but some tasty fresh spring rolls with chilli dip made up for it!
My flip flops went 'missing' later that night, from outside a restaurant we were eating at - it's respectful to remove footwear before entering most establishments in Laos and other Buddhist countries. Me being me, I was determined to find them. Everywhere we went that evening, I had my eyes to the ground searching for MY flip flops! I had pretty much given up by the last bar, but whilst we were outside getting ready to go, I spotted one and then a few minutes later the other - under a Christmas tree! I was delighted, my persistence paid off, and I saved myself a whopping $3 on buying new ones.

We all decided to rent bicycles the next day to explore Don Det, and across an old railway bridge to Don Khon.
All was going smoothly until Don Khon. Then Anna's apparent bad luck with bicycles manifested itself. We were cruising along when all of a sudden her peddle fell off! It wasn't just a matter of screwing it back on either, the threads were completely stripped! But the good thing about this part of the world, is you don't have to go far to find someone that can help. We found a man about five hundred metres down the road, we sat in a restaurant and waited for him to fix it. A Beer Lao later it was 'fixed', apparently. Anna, 5000 Kip lighter, hopped back on the bike, and we cycled off. But not even ten metres later the peddle fell off again! Whilst pushing it back down the road I found a bamboo stick and tried wedging it in to create a peddle, I think this gave Mr fixit an idea. Within two minutes he'd carved a peddle with his huge machete, out of a bit of 2x4! He then secured it with some string. It wasn't great, but it did the job, sort of. We got about fifteen hundred metres down the road this time, before the wooden peddle started to come loose. I decided to do the gentlemanly thing and gave Anna my bike, whilst I 'adapted' my cycling style to peddle along with one foot!
We arrived at Tad Somphamit waterfall, slightly later than anticipated, due to the handicapped bike.
The waterfall, even though big (by volume), looked like a humongous set of rapids. We took a few snaps and 'cycled' off to find a place for lunch. I was starting to feel the strain of cycling with one leg on sandy roads. So we tried adopting some new methods. With a long three metre piece of bamboo, we tried different ways of pushing/pulling the bike along. The best way we discovered, was with Amelia sat on the broken bike, me and Svante holding onto each end of the bamboo. With us either side of Amelia, we pushed her along with the bamboo resting on her back. It got a bit hairy at times, what with the traffic and narrow paths. But it worked.
We stopped at a place next to a beach, tried the 'young coconut' shake and had some rice dishes for lunch. Anna, not feeling too fussed about seeing much more decided she was going to start walking the dodgy bike back.
The three of us then powered on, following a small track, taking us through strong smelling 'herb' gardens, and forests, until we reached the most southern part of the island. We stopped for another irresistible young coconut shake, and sat admiring the view of the many tiny islands, out towards Cambodia.
Realising the time, we set off back towards Don Det, at a good pace. But it wasn't before long that we encountered our first obstacle - a fallen tree. We lifted our bikes over and continued at a good pace, crossing lots of rickety bridges. What we didn't expect to find around a blind bend was one of these rickety bridges collapsed and not in a state to cross! But after looking around for an alternative route, we had no choice but to take up the challenge! It would've been tough enough mastering this obstacle without a bike, so doing it whilst carrying a fairly heavy bike was exhausting! Especially having to do it twice, as I went to back and carried Amelia's too.
We returned to see Anna waiting at a restaurant next to the old railway bridge. She must've been shocked to see us looking sweaty, dirty and a bit battered (I'd sustained a cut to the foot somewhere along our travels). We told her about our adventures and went back to Dong Det.
Back on Dong Det we stopped for a refreshing and cleansing swim in the Mekong, followed by a 'happy cake' at 'King Kong's Restaurant and Bar'.
Feeling relaxed and chilled out in our hammocks, we didn't really feel up for going out to dinner. But we pulled ourselves together (as it would be our last time seeing Anna) and went for an amazing dinner at the 'Crazy Gecko'. I had a spicy red curry called gaeng ped gai, Amelia a lentil curry. Both were delicious. Since it was pancake day we had to 'force down' a chocolate and banana pancake for pudding.

A day of eating and chilling in hammocks followed our exhausting day of 'cycling'. We ate dinner again at the Crazy Gecko, this time I had pad ga-prao (stir fried pork with holy basil) and Amelia went for the gaeng ped gai after having food envy the previous night.
We said our farewells to Svante that night as he was continuing south to Cambodia early the next morning.

We left Don Det the following day too, our next destination... Champasak