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Don Det, Laos
13° 59' N 105° 56' E
Oct 13, 2007 16:30
Distance 168km

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Other entries in Don Det

The adventerous way to go!

Text written in: English

The day started out at 7.30 in the morning. I jumped on a moto from the hotel which took me to the central bus station. The same scene as in Phnom Penh, but a hundred times less chaotic. We waited there for the bus to fill up with people before leaving the town and picking up some more tourists en route for the boarder.                               

The scenerey was amazing on the way north. Just what I expect the Amazon to look like after they have pushed a road through it. Old virgin rain forest and jungle set back off the road by a few hundred meters, and in part coming up close. From the jungle to the road, deforastation on a large scale and new rice paddies being planted up. The houses were basic bamboo and banana leaf construction, no electrisity and no water. The road was dead straight with only a couple of bends in it every few kilometers. It must have looked a sight from the sky. It has just been tarmaced and so the 3 hour drive wasn't to bad, escpecially as we dropped people of on the way, more space became avalible, 4 people in the back of a mini van is a squash.                   

We arrived at Strung Treng, just before lunch so we ordered up some grub whilst waiting for the boat. Its a river side town where, at the moment the only way to cross the Mekong is to take a boat across. A Chinese team is pushing a road through from Laos into Cambodia at the moment, but they haven't paved the bridge yet so you still have to take a boat. On the other side we met 20 travellers heading south for Cambodia, and our guide and driver for the trip to Don Det. Most people head from Laos to Cambodia and not the other way around, its easyish to get transport on the Cambodian side south to Kraite, but to go north from the boarder through southern Laos is a bit hit and miss. We had booked from Kraite straight through to the island of Don Det in the Mekong river delta and area called the '4000 islands.' When the bridge is completed it should be a very easy route and alot more popular.                    

The diver on the Laos side of the boarder had some intresting theories on driving. He would take to the left hand side of the road on a left hand bend, when he couldn't see anything. He would slow down and beep his horn lots. This wasted the micro second he could have saved if he went the same speed around the corner that he could actually see around. If he stayed at the same speed and stayed on the right side of the road where he should have been, he could have saved the micro second he was aiming for, he would have also made this nervous passenger a little more easy about being a passenger in his car. He did have air-con, which almost made up for his crazy driving.                          

We came around a bend in the new road, and all of a sudden the road stopped this was the boarder to Laos. The tarmac stopped in a straight line across the road, just, disappeared, like they had run out of money, which they probably have, being asia and all. From here we walked over the boarder. We sorted out all the usual paper work and paid the guards the '$1' over time rate, they asked for. They could have asked for more. The road from here was a dirt road, no, actually it was a track more than a road. Huge pot holes filled up with water. After a few bumpy kms we came to the Laos immigration where we filled out more paper work and paid these guards the '$1' over time fee, as well. It isn't an offcial boarder crossing, so you don't hjave a leg to stand on if you want to argue the over time fee. After that is was another couple of kms till we reached a more permanent road and were loaded on to another bus which took us to the jetty by the Mekong. From here it was a km across the river to the island of Don Det. The boat was paper thin, and the small engine struggling to fight the current, it was even stronger here than in Kraite. The island was completely deserted. It has electrisity  for some of the time but not all day. Seeing as the semis of the world cup are on, and England have actually made it there, im heading north in the morning to Pakse, 2hrs north, to find a tv to watch it on.