Sarah & Richard's Travels

Despite being only 2 hours bus ride from Pakse the 4,000 Islands, right on the border with Cambodia, are in a world of their own which usually has many advantages in terms of getting away from it all. For us however it was a different story. The morning we left none of the cash machines in Pakse were working being either locked or under maintenance so we had a grand total of 550,000 kip (around 40pounds) for three days for two of us and we had to get back to Pakse at least. It was to be a challange and we made it (save for 120,000 which we changed at a hideously bad rate).

Apart from this small challenge and an altercation with some locals on Don Khon the islands were brilliant. We had a small boat ride from the mainland over to the island of Don Khon. There seem to be three islands where tourists head, the biggest is Don Kone, Don Khong being the middle size and Don Det (more later) the smallest. Even though tourists choose these islands there were relatively few and it was great to get away from them for awhile! Yes, yes I know we are tourists as well...

Don Khon had a few accommodation options, but most of the decent ones were already full and the rest ridiculously expensive as Don Khon has the worst value for money out of the two we stayed on. So we ended up in a bamboo bungalow for the grand total of 30,000 kip (around 2.10pound per night). I didn't know places existed this cheap. It certainly wasn't the Ritz, far from it, but being on the river we had the best view possible (at no extra charge thank you very much) and a great hammock to swing away the afternoon...there was just the small problem of shared cold shower and toilet, no light or fan in the room and a door that wouldn't shut. But it was a roof over our heads and you can't really complain for two pounds I suppose? We spent that afternoon chilling out in a restaurant and then swinging horizontally on the hammock.

Next day I decided we should move and see if the grass was greener on the otherside...and greener it was. We had noticed the day before a 10,000kip fee which we thought was to cross the bridge to the island of Don Det This bridge has been around since the time of the French and connects the two islands over a small channel. We went to pass the point and were immediately called back by the guys in the booth who told us we each had to pay. We were a bit confused as thought it was for crossing the bridge, but then they say 'no Don Khon is tourist island now, you must pay for roads'. Having not paid the day before we thought this pretty weird and looking at the signage thought it was for the bridge. But to cut a long story short we got a little angry and so did the locals so we went back to where we came from (and for some reason didn't have to pay for this) and spoke to someone who explained what it was all about and then went back and paid. Whilst we're only talking about less than a pound each you must think we are crazy (and rude), but we got used to being short changed for things in Laos (they have a habit of giving $1 or so less change than you should get which soon adds up) so we were on our guard.

After this little altercation we packed up, shouldered our bags and walked peacefully over the bridge to Don Det, right through golden rice paddy fields in the middle of the island to what is known as 'Sunset Boulevard' which has a string of accommodation options from 1.50 per night, for basic, basic riverside bungalow, to around 15 pounds / night for larger more modern bungalows with very comfy looking matresses and bathrooms. If we hadn't been so poor I probably would have opted for this. There was also a ridiculous option of Little Eden for around 80 USD / night...slightly out of our budget. Nevertheless we found a great deal (well we thought so anyway) where for the same price as the night before (2pounds) we got a way better bungalow with our own hot water bathroom, fan and electricity...awesome! Turns out there are advantages to a place where more tourists are and therefore more competition!

There's a lot of kayaking trips around the islands here and you can also go and see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin which is on the border with Cambodia. We opted to hire bikes, the basic ones which were the cheapest and cycle around the islands. We opted for a different route than what we had walked and cycled along the coast watching long tails come and go with tourists, or rice, or beer and supplies loaded up on top. Some of the kids here had started to realise what they can get out of tourists and would quite sweetly offer (or sometimes force) a small flower into your hands in return for money. It's quite sad to see it happening, but I suppose life is hard and that's what they've learnt - some tourists = money. We crossed back over the bridge and cycled to the waterfalls between the islands which were surprisingly big and dropped quite a way (it all felt quite flat so was strange to see the big drop) and then cycled through the native jungle to the south of the island where trips leave to see the Dolphins. From there we followed the old railway track which the French have left derelict and saw the little train rusting away on it's turntable. All was going well until Richy got a flat tyre on the bike, with the rocky road I was surprised it didn't happen sooner, so it was unfortunately a long hike back to the bungalow for Richy.

We spent another day chilling out before getting on a bus all the way to back to Bangkok via Pakse and Ubon Ratchathani - a long, overnight journey with a very interesting bus driver and lots of unscheduled stops to pick up and drop off - I'm sure we could have arrived about 2 hours earlier had this not been the case!

All in all 4000 Islands (Si Phan Don) was a great place to chill out and spend some time and very little money. The sunsets were amazing also!