After our amazing road trip on the Bolovens plateau, we leave Pakse to go to the 4,000 islands with our new friends Dimitris and Giulia.
We start the day with a wonderful breakfast at La Boulange before taking a bus to Ban Nakasang, from where we will take a boat to go to the islands. The bus is scheduled to leave at 8 am, and we leave 30 minutes late.
Yet another bus that breaks down
We are supposed to arrive at 11 am on the islands (which seems impossible given the way transportation works in Laos), and indeed at 11 am we are 3 miles away from where we need to take the boat and at that moment the bus breaks down. A day of transportation without an issue seemed too good to be true.
We are stuck while the driver tries to fix the engine. It is already 100 degrees outside, and no engine running also means no AC in the bus… After 45 minutes the guide finally decides to call a tuk-tuk to bring us to the the pier (it is a mystery why he didn’t think about the solution sooner). But right as we are about to get on the tuk-tuk the bus starts again! The driver was able to fix the engine and we all sit back down and drive to the pier.
Tourist nightmare
When we arrive we are surprised to see that there are nothing but souvenir shops and tourists around. We hope it won’t be this inauthentic and crazy on the islands.
4000 islands, a peaceful place with lots of history
Let’s talk a little about the 4,000 islands before talking about us. This river archipelago is located in the South of Laos at the border with Cambodia.
In the colonial times, the French dreamt of turning the Mekong into a transportation highway for their colonies. But this dream quickly became a nightmare when they had to cross these islands. Indeed the waters here are shallow and there are many waterfalls. To improve this they built a railway on the islands of Don Det and Don Khone so the goods could cross the 4,000 islands and continue their way down the Mekong. It also here in these island that we can find freshwater dolphins, the Irrawady dolphins, a species on the brink of extinction and that is now protected.
Choosing an island for our stay : Don Det or Don Khone ?
When we arrive at Ban Nakasang, there are 3 possibilities. We can go to Don Khong, the largest and most Northern island where nothing much happens. Don Det, island of parties and drugs (especially the North part of it) and finally Don Khone. This one is joined to Don Det by the old railway bridge and is closest to the main sites to visit.
Our Italian friends heard about a nice guesthouse in the South of Don Det, far from the crazy North area and right by the bridge that crosses over to Don Khone. The huge advantage of this guesthouse is that it has a swimming pool! And given the heat forecasted for the next few days we feel like a swimming pool is necessary for our well being!
After putting all these tourists in different long tail boats, we finally make our way to Don Khone (the guesthouse being closer to the Don Khone pier than the one on Don Det).
The sail lasts about half an hour and is really pretty. We see plenty of bungalows lined up on Don Det.
And also we have to slalom between all these patches of vegetation that lie in the Mekong and we wonder if these are counted as part of the 4,000 islands 😉 .
The vegetation around is green and lush, and the sail to Don Khone is really relaxing.
It also helps that we are only 5 on our boat, indeed the tourists in Ban Nakasang all took the boat to Don Det.
We arrive early afternoon, and immediately make our way to the Long Island guesthouse with the swimming pool. To our biggest disappointment the guesthouse is already fully booked tonight, but it does have two bungalows available for the next day so we immediately book for 3 nights. For the time being we simply find a cheap room nearby to spend the night.
Relaxing afternoon
After a late lunch, it is too hot to do anything so we decide to go back to Long Island to at least take advantage of the pool until sunset.
We book a kayak tour the 4 of us for the next day where we will see the nearby islands, go see the dolphins and check out the widest falls in the world also nicknamed the Niagara Falls of the Mekong.
Spending the day kayaking on the Mekong
We see a beautiful sunrise before leaving for our kayaking day.
We have nice small group of 10 people with 2 local guides.
The first part brings us along Don Det and South to Don Khone.
We drop off our kayaks and walk to our first waterfalls : Khane Pakse and Tad Khone Pa Soi. We walk along the Mekong and cross a hanging bridge than can only hold two people at a time. The falls are nice, but to be honest we have seen many many waterfalls lately so we are a little spoiled.
We hop back in our kayaks a little further down and take the opportunity to go for a swim because it is already super hot outside.
From there we navigate for half an hour in some narrow rapids. Matt takes control of the kayak to avoid hitting rocks or landing in the bushes.
Our Italian friends aren’t so lucky and get stuck in the bushes. We are just behind them and luckily film everything! Nobody got hurt and we all had a good laugh.
We paddle past a few water-buffaloes.
We then stop at another beach where a locally made catamaran takes us to see the dolphins.
During the boat ride our guide cooks us lunch on a barbecue. Not sure that making a fire on a wooden boat is the safest thing on earth but the food turns out delicious. We eat our fried rice and kebabs on the boat admiring the dolphins who pop out of the water from time to time. These look a lot different than the dolphins you see in the sea.
We met a Spanish couple who told us that they came here 4 years ago. And at that time there were dolphins everywhere, you could even swim with them. Today there are only very few left, the reason being the Chinese who started to build a damp 3 years ago which is completely destroying the eco-system.
Talking about the dam, after lunch we continue on our kayaks and are supposed to stop at a typical Lao village. But because of the dam, the village has been destroyed and the villagers had to relocate. This huge construction site now employs over 3,000 Chinese workers for only 40 Lao…
From here a tuk-tuk is waiting for us to drive us to the famous Phapheng waterfalls, the Niagara of South East Asia. We have to take the kayaks out of the water and attach them on the top of the tuk-tuk. The guide asks Matt to help, it is true that in this case his size really helps lifting the kayaks on the tuk-tuk 😉 .
The last site of the day are these Phapheng waterfalls. And these are pretty impressive. Apparently these are the widest in the world because they extend on 6 miles all the way across the Mekong to Cambodia. From where we stand we can only see a very small part of them.
We then drive to Ban Nakasang, unload the kayaks and kayak back to Don Det before catching a boat ride back to our guesthouse where our bags are waiting for us and we will be spending the next three nights.
A nice quiet evening the 4 of us together, exhausted by the day kayaking.
A day at the pool
The next day Maider is pretty sore and we decide to spend the day at the pool doing nothing but reading, swimming and napping. A great relaxing day spent in great company with Dimitris and Giulia.
Walking around Don Det
The next day they have to leave to Pakse before returning back to Switzerland where they live. We walk with them to the pier on Don Det to visit the island. But aside from a few cows and plenty of bungalows there isn’t much to see.
We have a last breakfast together before saying our goodbyes and hope to see them again in the future.
We walk back down the other side of the island and will stay the day doing nothing by the pool of our guesthouse.
Our stay in the 4,000 islands was the perfect excuse to get some rest before leaving for Cambodia where we will meet up with Matt’s parents, who will be on vacation with plenty of energy. Hopefully we are well rested and will be able to follow their pace!
Our last BeerLao (only beer sold in Laos, so we drank a lot of this one…) and a last sunrise before leaving to Cambodia. A long day of transportation awaits us to get to Siem Reap where we will continue our adventures with Matt’s parents.
Before leaving on this trip around the world we didn’t expect much of Laos. It is certainly the less well known and poorest country we go through during this year, but we really loved it. The people are simple, really nice and smiling all the time. They enjoy their BeerLao with ice cubes and we felt welcomed everywhere we went. We got used to their very chill pace, and leave the country feeling completely relaxed. We met amazing people and discovered a way of living that is pretty far from our standards in Europe. Laos will definitely have a special place in our hearts and will remain as a beautiful surprise during our trip.