Thursday, March 30, 2023

Been there Don Det

Last stop for us in Laos was Don Det in the Si Phan Don (4000 islands) archipelago. We crossed over on one of the small ferries, taking our motorbike with us.
Even tough we ended up not using them but exploring the island by push bike 🥵

The captain didn’t show up so we took another one 😂

The island is in the middle of the Mekong and nowadays famous for it’s laid back atmosphere. 


We had some sunset drinks, sat in the Mekong drinking beer and looked at the waterfall. 




Our hotel manager was wearing one of the famous luxury pajamas (every day a different one) and was excited when we showed up in ours 🤣


The French back in the days built a railroad over it to cross the waterfalls around it. To further their gun boat diplomacy up river they needed gunboats 😉 So they built a rail road across the islands (even adding a bridge from Don Khon to Don Det, yes Don means island 😬), cut the boats into pieces and drove them up river of the waterfalls. The rail road (tracks) are long gone but the bridge is still in use. Also somewhere in the jungle they found one of the locomotives used for the task. 


Other then that we played a lot of (shitty) pool, looked for a massage (found none), had a pumpkin burger (was delicious), talked to one of the British (stuck on the island since 9 years), did not go fishing (no fish), did not see the river dolphins (all dead ☹️), skipped the kayaking (too much sun) and the tubing (not enough current) but relaxed in the hammock 😎 

So many sunsets


Some restaurants had a lot of options…