Si Phan Don translates as 4,000 Islands and is an archipelago within the Mekong in Laos that's made up by an absolute s load of islands, hence the name. I counted them though, there's only 3,987 - it's clearly just a marketing gimmick.
We reached the first of the main islands - Don Khong - with 11 days left on our visa and the intention to nail doing S.F.A. and maximising the equation of beers drunk + time in hammocks.
After three nights in Don Khong we squeezed into a long-tail with the rest of the foreigners and puttered down the Mekong to spend a night on the bottom of Don Det before crossing the Old French Bridge to spend the rest of our time on Don Khon. Yes, Don Khon not Don Khong. Both pretty much sound the same but make buying bus tickets to either a whole heap of fun.
A variable that we hadn't factored into the above equation was the stories that we'd walk away with. You genuinely couldn't walk down the street without seeing something strange, interesting or funny thanks to the locals that still call the islands home and a lot of the rustic beauty that's been retained. Little kids still run out into the street to give you high five and yell sabaidee and there's still a nice feeling of community on the islands.
Here are some of those stories.
Honk-a-Doodle-Do
My favourite is I was going for a walk to get beers one night and about seven or eight kids had just been for a swim in the Mekong. The youngest of the group was stripping down nude and as he did one of the older boys leant over, gave his willy a bit of a honk, they both had a bit of a giggle and the little boy wandered back home.
They See Me Riden'
From eight days old to eighteen years old the average Laos kid is so much more capable and mature than a kid of the same age in the Western world it's borderline embarrassing. It should therefore not have come as a shock when we watched an eight year old take four of his five year old buddies around for a ride on his Dad's tuk-tuk but it still did. It always will. The kid has swag.
Motorboating Monks
When you think of a monk you think many things - speed demon is not one of them. The young kids around this area build these tiny, one man, streamlined boats and soon as school's off they tear up and down the Mekong fighting tooth and nail to edge the other. Watching this was fun enough but seeing a monk in one... Well that's certainly a sight that you'd never expect to see. And unlike their normally peaceful, harmonious demeanour they're gunning it as hard as the next guy.
In the search for our perfect bungalow we were shown through a heap and got sick of the 'thank you, we have think, will come back' line and the owner's look of yeah, sure you will. This one time we didn't feel so guilty.
By this point we'd picked up this guy (whose neck sweat and shoulder are a cat's best friend) and we waited around whilst the guesthouse owner grabbed the keys to open up her bungalows.
We walked into the first one which was nice enough and came already furnished with a fist sized frog. I pointed out to Tom he had a friend in this one and we all had a bit of a laugh but whilst we were looking at it the old lady noticed it too and made a half hearted attempt to shoo it out the door. It was then, about mid strike, we learned this poor frog's fate and gasped in unison.
Down came the hard end of her straw broom, in went a few straw barbs and she then picked it up and placed it on the balustrade before pounding it into oblivion and turfing it into the garden - it wasn't even dinner!
We had a friend of our own at one of our bungalows. A foot long gecko who guarded the entrance to the room. It's like seeing an artist take something small and make it huge, it just looks cool. This giant gecko also had a lot of swag.
Waterfalls and Stuff
On Don Khon there are two waterfalls. We made it to Khon Pa Soi early one morning which in all honesty was pretty average. The only fun bits were our own personal guide, who was beyond excited to have her first visitors for the morning, and the varying degrees of difficulty and construction of the bridges that connected the place together.
The other however - Tad Somphamit - is a sight to behold. By volume of water it's the biggest waterfall in SE Asia and in wet season would be one hell of a dangerous beast. You can look out over the top of the falls and see the Mekong just meandering along, as it does, then it reaches the end of the plateau and gushes down in bone crushing torrents. It's a stark reminder of the Mekong's deceptive power - I can take life as quickly as I give it, DO NOT f*ck with me.
Despite that word of warning, there's a pool around a bend in the river, just down from the falls, where you can cool down in the heat of the day in bath temperature water. So refreshing.
The greatest pleasure down near the pool was watching three little boys running amok. Two were d*cking around playing some ramdom game with a polystyrene disk that they'd found whilst the more mature of the three went off hunting. Fifteen minutes later the hunter emerged from over the top of the rocks with five giant frogs slung over his back, he rounded up his pals and off they went. Job done.
Can You Drive a Boat?
Years ago a heap of Irrawaddy Dolphins made their way up the Mekong with some finding themselves a home around Si Phan Don. Thanks to continued dynamiting of the Mekong by the lovely Khmer Rouge a lot of the dolphins were killed. However a pod still exists in a pool off the bottom of Don Khon.
We rose early again (what is this "alarm" business?) and made our way down to the southern tip of the island where boatmen would be waiting to take us out to see the dolphins, or so the internet had informed us. We got there and a young guy looked at us and said "dolphin?", to which we nodded and he looked at another bloke and you could see through each of their mannerisms that the conversation went something like this:
Young kid: Can you drive a boat?
Older guy: Sure
Young guy: You know where the dolphins are?
Older guy: Yeah, out there somewhere. Do these guys need life jackets?
Young kid: Nah, the cheap bastards didn't pay for a tour. They should just be happy that you drove a boat once when you were fourteen
Maybe a slight exaggeration because our boatman was great. Through a lack of sleep, food and caffeine we scanned the waters around us hoping to spot just one in the distance. We saw one, then a second, a third and possibly even a forth. Given they believe only 10 still exist in the area, we were pretty chuffed with the experience. And we got a super close-up of one of them. Jealous much?
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| Your Galapagos photos ain't got nothing on that, MM |
You might want to check out photos of them here instead. They're far from your average dolphin.
Brown Mangoes
And finally, Nix's favourite story. We were sat there having lunch one day and Nix said, "look!" At the exact moment that we all turned around a boy who'd hitched his shorts up into a silky g-string to expose his little brown butt instinctively spun around to see us all looking and laughing. He very quickly pulled his shorts back down and sheepishly ran inside. It was a good moment.
Laos is beautifully simple and simply beautiful. We very forlornly left our hammock and this great country behind and prepared ourselves for battle at the Laos/Cambodian border.
War was waged, blood was shed, we saved US$3 each on the other foreign suckers who used the services of a visa runner at the border. Travel isn't a contest but if it was we'd be winning because we know how to fill out a visa application form all by our self-righteous selves.
It may not look like we covered too much ground but when 400km is a 10 hour journey, I think we did OK...
