After a three-hour, extremely dusty bus ride (the bus had open sides, no windows) , followed by a narrow boat crossing, we arrived at what are known as the islands... the Four Thousand Islands - in the Mekong River in the south of Laos. These were to be our last few days in Laos and we wanted to make the most of them, but relax. Well after meeting up with Earl, Joy and Sarah (who had arrived earlier) on Don Det, we relaxed over some Beer Lao (it really is very tasty beer!). Anyway, the following few days we chilled out, rented bicycles and explored our island and the one it was connected to by bridge, Don Khon. We saw amazing waterfalls even though it is the dry season! We took a boat down the river almost to the border with Cambodia to see freshwater Irrawaddy (yes, a rather strange name!) dolphins. Very cool, and we saw lots of them although they were quite far away. These dolphins are becoming endangered as they were shot by the Khmer Rouge in neighbouring Cambodia, as well as the Vietnamese shooting them for sport after they 'rescued' Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge.
Another evening we took a sunset river cruise and had our own sand island to view it from. It was a beautiful river ride too, as we watched the fisherman fling out their nets and dive in after them to collect the catch. Finally, on our last day we rented out kayaks and pottered around the river and its 4000 islands... even a teeny lump of sand and a tuft of grass apparently counts as an island!! We 'discovered' island #2923! It was a very pretty place and we enjoyed exploring it and just chilling out. We spent a very pleasant last four days in Laos and we were sorry to leave such a lovely country and such warm, friendly people! * Mush
No comments:
Post a Comment