We arrived in Pakse at around 5 30 after a very long and uncomfortable journey, with non-stop blaring karaoke (in Lao) all night long. After an incredibly long cafufle involving certain members of our group treking around the city in search of ATM's we set off again in a mini bus for the four thousand islands. Clambering onto a rickety ferry accross streaming raw sewerage was less than appealing but once on the island we set off in search of a guesthouse. We think that the lonely planet was having a laugh when they called this island "the biggest backpacker scene in the area" as it was a tiny little island that only had electricity for 4 hours a day! Not exactly wild but very peaceful. After wandering the island we went in serach of an activity for the rest of the day- we were pffered kayaking by one man only to be told that it was deathly dangerous by some locals, due to the turbulant nature of the waters. That evening we set off on a "sunset cruise" which was incrdibly picturesque and would have been great apart from the mans blaring boat engine. We were also unsucesful in finding a sunset but instead found ourselves a thunder storm to light our way home. We docked with our boat on one tiny- untouched by tourists island and took a short walk around the village. It was really interesting to see how the local people live without our western influence, it seemed like such a simple way of life, with pigs and goats living along side humans in stilted houses. After returning, thankfully before the rain came, we had dinner with our new friends jess and Zahra in an incredibly bug infested restaurant. It was strange to retrun to our room in the dark-as the electricity turns off at 10, but in the end was quite atmospheric reading by candlelight.
Day 2 on the island took us on a bus and boat trip out in search of the "rare irawaddy dolphins", who were supposedly pink but looked pretty grey to us. We were stopped en route at a faux border crossing into cambodia which consisted of a pyjama clad man with a cambodian flag in a shak demanding a dollar from each of us- deffinately a scam but we payed up anyway. After some good dolphin watching (apparently we were lucky to see them- but there seemed to be quite a few about). We set off back on our bus to see South East Asia's Largest waterfall. It was immense, it had tons of different mini "falls" cascading into the river and seemed to be incredibly powerfull. We wonder why they don't harness the energy so that we could have more than 4 hours a day of light. Back on the island we sat for 45 minutes awaiting our lunch - in typical lao laid back style, two women lying around allowing one to run around like a headless chicken attempting to cook.
In the afternoon we went tubing (floating in big rubber rings) down the mekong with Jess and Zahra. It was incredibly peacefull and we were the only people out on the water apart from a boat load of monks which passed us several times. At one point our trusty boat man abandoned us and we were stuck going backwards in the current, not really getting anywhere nearer home. Eventually however, the man reappeared and we were hauled to safety. Getting into the boat was less than ladylike with lots of heave-ho's and collapsing into fits of giggles. We had a very nice evening dinner with Ben, Rupert, Zahra and Jess, but we got booted to bed when the electricity ran out around 11.
Our Final day on Don Det we decided to really explore the Island after much Hamock and reading time. We finally rented bikes and went on a long ride around the Island and the adjoining one called Don Khon. The ride was increddibly surreal taking us through Paddy fields with water buffallo wandering around. The Views were absolutely incredible.It was bloody bumpy ride but worth it in the end as we stumbled accross another beautiful waterfall, which was completely deserted, apart from one crazy local who was actually fishing in the rapids. We had a somewhat random evening which involved being invited to a Latvian's traditional lao fish stew, ie. sitting around a pot of boiling broth and adding your own vegetables, noodles and fish. It was very delicious, if a little difficult to eat.
Next morning we left Don Det early, heading north on another mammoth journey to collect Sophie in Vientiane.