Si Phan Don, otherwise known as 4000 islands is a series of small islands within the Mekong at the very southern tip of Laos. Although many islands are not inhabited some have a real backpacker vibe with bamboo huts on the waters edge and hammocks to while away the hours in. I decided this was exactly the sort of place I fancied seeing in my 32nd year so off we headed for some R&R. It was possibly the most chilled out place I have ever been. After visiting several cafés and perusing their menus it became clear why it was just so chilled out.
We checked into a very cheap hut and in the night realised why when I woke to the sound of rats in the roof and 2 giant cockroaches on my face. From then on we assumed the position buried deep within our sleeping sack and covering as much of the face as possible. As a birthday treat Mark moved us into a lovely concrete rat free room for our final few nights.
Caz and Asa joined us for my birthday and we hired bikes and rode to an impressive waterfall on a neighbouring island. On the way back we did a bar crawl all the way back to town where we opened my lovely gifts and carried on drinking. A local shopkeeper had given me a free bottle of Whiskey so we necked shots from that which were pretty horrid but did the job. The following day we took a tour to another impressive waterfall (South-east Asia’s largest in volume apparently) and then onto view the fresh water Irawaddy dolphins. Very shy creatures but they were great to see when they did make an appearance. Slightly more entertaining was a group of young monks who were far more fascinated watching us, particularly when Mark and I shared a Beerlao directly from the bottle.
We left Vientiane on a night sleeper bus bound for Pakse. Despite being a foot too short for our height the double mattress style sleeping arrangements was surprisingly comfortable, even with my water slide injuries. We arrived feeling remarkably refreshed and checked into a lovely hotel with free wifi and cable TV and that’s pretty much were we spent the rest of that day after sorting out our impending motorbike tour. The ‘Southern Swing’ is a classic route around the south of Laos’ Bolaven Plateau. Mark was very excited about the whole adventure but I, as usual, was just worried about possible crashes, fatalities and complicated insurance claims. Just when I had reassured myself that we were responsible adults with 24 years collective road experience and all would be well we picked up our 125 Suzuki ‘Smash’ and it just felt like a sign from above.
It turned out however to be one of the real highlights of our Laos experience. Mark rode very well, assisted greatly by my expert pillion positioning. We rode 350km around spectacular scenery of coffee plantations, tribal villages, weaving communities and a series of truly impressive waterfalls. Many of the roads were sealed and in surprisingly good condition but others were impassable on anything other than a bike or 4×4 vehicle. The people were the real highlight calling out “Sabaai-dii” (Hello) and waving as they realised 2 large white folks on a tiny bike were heading through their remote village. Aside from our first visit to a familiar fuel station when we started the journey every other top-up was done by stopping at a little wooden shack. A kid would usually appear from nowhere and syphon off enough dodgy looking pink fuel to keep us going until the next one. On our return to Pakse we were sad to give the bike up and I think if we have any money left over after this trip that will be one of our first purchases when back in Blighty.
