Si Phan Don

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164_6445-4.JPGOur last few days in Lao have been spent on a couple of islands in Si Phan Don, which translates to “4,000 Islands.” After the interesting ride from Champasak, which Joylani described, we took a ferry across the Mekong to the village of Muang Khong on the island of Don Khong. Don Khong is the largest island with the largest population of Si Phan Don, which is not saying much. There are two paved roads; one circumnavigates the island, while the other bisects it. A road map of the island is simple an oval with a line through it. Despite being the largest village, its still pretty small- a few guesthouses, a wat, a dock, a decrepit bank, and not much else. We did find a room which turned out to be one of the nicest we’ve stayed in on our entire trip. While I’d expect a clean room with hot-water and AC for 10 USD, we also got maid service and a room with great décor and a pillow-top mattress pad (Joylani’s observations, not mine :)

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view of the Mekong

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Don Det on the left, Don Khon on the right

We didn’t do a whole lot during our day and a half there. We attempted a midafternoon walk after we arrived and ate lunch on our first day there. But Don Khong doesn’t have many trees (and I think I’ve mentioned how its getting pretty hot), so that ended after a few minutes as it was just too hot to be out. So we spent the rest of the day reading and writing. Then yesterday we walked as far as we could across the island before we turned back, when it got too hot. There really is not much to do on Don Khong- the only things on the island are some huts with the usual satellite dishes, harvested fields, a few motorbikes, the occasional truck, and kids and animals roaming around. The middle of yesterday was also spent reading and writing, although we took a walk south along the riverbank in the evening. It was a really mellow day, but it really typifies Lao. This morning we caught a boat to Don Det, which is about an hour and a half south. It’s a small island that’s totally undeveloped and caters to backpackers; no roads or electricity at night, but it has internet cafes and expat bars. We ate an early lunch and then began walking south along one of the many dirt paths that criss-cross the island. Luckily, the island has plenty of trees and the riverbanks are shaded by coconut palms. So we walked for a while. After an hour of walking, we crossed an old French bridge from Don Det to Don Khon. The bridge is only noteworthy because it happens to be the only bridge the French ever built in Lao! They ruled Lao for a century and they only managed to build one insignificant little bridge between two insignificant islands. From the bridge we walked another two kilometers to Tat Somphamit, a large waterfall. It was not as great as our guidebook had made it out to be, perhaps because the only viewpoint was from above. Also, maybe we expected more after walking unshaded for the last kilometer or so in extreme heat and humidity. Anyways, from the waterfall, we backtracked to the main path where we continued south until we came to a beach, where some locals were playing volleyball and a food stand was setup. A bunch of longtail boats were lined up on the shore and we charted one to take us out on the river, in hopes that we’d spot some Irrawaddy river dolphins. We went downriver about 30 minutes and then we tied up alongside a big rock in the middle of the wide river. We hopped out and climbed to the top of the rock, where we stood and looked out for dolphins. We did see a few surfacing for air, but they were a few hundred feet away and difficult to see. It was a bit disappointing after our Maldivian experience of seeing dolphins spontaneously doing aerial flips and barrel rolls. We probably wouldn’t have even tried to see these dolphins, except that I recently read Amitav Ghosh’s The Angry Tide, which has a main character who studies the species and so the dolphins are, in a way, central to the plot.

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on our way to see the dolphins

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saw a few dolphins btw the rock this photo was taken from and that island….

It was a bit over an hour’s walk back, but it was much more pleasant in the evening. Back in town, we ate and tried to spend the rest of our kip- internet at expensive rates, some gifts for people at home, and Beer Lao. Tomorrow, Cambodia.

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