When Dan told me we were visiting a place with 4000 islands, I was expecting it to be a bit like this picture.... sadly I was mistaken! Si Phon Don is on the southern tip of Laos and is where the Mekong River fans out to leave 4000 islands of which some are inhabited. We had to take a small boat over to the island as there are no roads!! It was back to basics for a couple of days- and I mean basic. All the accommodation is basically bungalows on stilts over the river, we decided to stay at Paradise Guesthouse for 70p a night!! Our room was basically wooden planks nailed together and you could even see the river under us! The bed was a wooden frame with two sun lounger cushions for a mattress and 3 barbie size pillows- oh and a mosquito net, but that was it!!! We did have a balcony overlooking the river with a hammock which was really cool. We laughed with our new neighbours about how it was fun to go 'back to basics'. We showered in rain water and only had electricity from 6-8pm and then had to survive by candle light. There were a few early nights, but coz the locals go to bed so early they are all up by 6am and made sure everyone knew about it!! We both said that this place was one of the best we had visited. We hired bikes and cycled to a waterfall, saw our first scorpion and lay in our hammocks reading books! I know I was reading!!! When we left the owners of the bungalows gave us a good luck bracelet- even the 70 year old grandma came out and started chanting while rubbing this cotton over our arms!! Lets just hope it works!!