Don Khone Island, Laos - 20 to 23 February

Our first destination in south west Laos was to be Don Khone, in the 4000 islands area.. We arrived here after a rather traumatic journey. Our 'VIP' coach  into Laos arrived in Kratie 3 hours late having broken down en route. We duly arrived at the border much later than anticipated, in the dark, and the driver had to go and dig out the Cambodian border guards who then extracted $2/head overtime to process our passports. This was repeated on the Laos side and the whole crossing took well over 30 mins.
When we were dropped in Ban Nakasang, it was dark rather than mid-afternoon; however, the small open boats to get us over to the islands were still running. They would not go to our island though, as in the dark the channels were too dangerous; it's the dry season and the water is low. Anyway, we got to the neighbouring island of Don Deth which had a bridge across to Don Khone. On Don Deth we were able to get a couple of local lads to run us the 5km to our hotel, complete with luggage, on their motorbikes over a rough dirt track. We arrived at our hotel tired and dirty and were delighted to find that the restaurant was still open and that we had plenty of time for a shower before eating.
In the morning we were able to appreciate how beautiful a spot it was and I attempted to get a decent WiFi connection to catch up.

View  from restaurant terrace

The office

It wasn't to be so not a lot to be done online.

We hired bikes for the next two days and went exploring the small island. This section of the Mekong drops over a hard rock outcrop that stretches right across so consequently the area is famous for the many waterfalls and rapids as the various branches of the river plunge down the 10 to 40 metre drops. Spectacular in the wet season; but still worth seeing in the dry season.

Outside of the immediate vicinity of the band of hotels and guest-houses this is still a rural island and the rough tracks took us through numerous hamlets and paddy fields.
Unfortunately we only ha d a few days here and we had to move on. The departure was gladly more civilised than our arrival.