After crossing the border from Kratie and lots of paper work and bribery we arrived at our first destination in Laos, a small island called Don Det part of the 4000 Iislands. We took a tiny boat out with 6 other westerners and shed loads of baggage it was a little frighting I thought we might capsize but we managed to stay afloat despite the rain! We found a really amazing little bungalow with an even better river view. The island is tiny, has no hot water and only has electricity from 18.30 till 22.00! apart from the internet cafe which is open practically 24 hours a day! (got there priorities in order!) we spent the first afternoon lazing around the island avoiding the rain and still trying to catch up on our diaries. We had dinner and a few Lao beers. When we got back to our bungalow we found a little scorpion – which has reminded me to keep my backpack closed at all times.
Next day we had breakfast in another beautiful restaurant on the river and set off on a 5km walk to the waterfall and old French railway on the next island. The waterfall was really amazing we got chatting with some people who apparently are part of Thailand tourist board here to help the Laos tourist board with turning this waterfall into a bigger resort, which will be a bit of a shame as the walk through practically jungle is really cool. While we where there we had a drink, (even in the middle of nowhere you will always find a restaurant or two) Herman had a banana smoothie but the lady could not get her generator started even with helpful advice from her 3 children shouting pull! So Herman went to help her – she was so shocked and grateful, we made it back to our little island as the rain started so we ran to book our transport for tomorrow to Pakse. We ran back to the bungalow because by now it was really fat rain and the flooding is crazy. We had dinner at the same place we had breakfast which is owned by the same family as our bungalow. He is French married to a Lao lady, we got chatting about our plans and how I want to go and see some elephants and it turns out his friend has 2 in Tadlo – which is on our way so we will definitely be visiting him!
We just found out a girl got bitten by someone's pet monkey in a bar (not that common to have a pet monkey in a bar in the UK but it is here!) eeeek RABIES!