Arriving on Don Det: They have Nutella

January 18, 2015

Before moving onto the day's narrative I thought it might be interesting to start by showing you what a funny shape my tent has taken on recently

Don't ever buy a Red Fox tent. All three of the poles have snapped - one of them in the middle of the night for no reason at all. Luckily I'm good at fixing things with bits of trash I find at the side of the road. Ok, on with the narrative...

Having easily found a camping place just north of Khong, in the morning I cycled back through that town on my way south. I soon passed by a big new bridge linking Don Khong with the mainland, which I cycled up onto to look down on the dozens of fishermen out on the Mekong. There were so many of them it was a wonder that there were any fish left to catch.

Early morning, people washing in the Mekong

Recycling in action - some of the fishermen used plastic bottles as floats for their nets

There were a great many fishing boats. Quite a gauntlet the fish around here must have to swim

But I didn't cross the bridge, I stayed on Don Khong and continued south on an empty road until I found a ferry that could take me across to my second island, Don Som. Once again I was quoted a higher price of 10,000 kip that went down to 5,000 when a couple of motorbikes joined me for the short crossing. Alan congratulated me for my patience.

My bicycle waiting onboard for some more passengers to arrive

Don Som was so, so, so great. There were no cars on the island at all, and no roads in fact, only sandy tracks through the fields for bikes. The atmosphere was defying the laws of possibility by being even more laid-back than anywhere I'd been before, and there wasn't another falang in sight. Well, not until I met four touring cyclists coming the other way. A young Australian named David, Dutch Jan, and two girls from the wonderful community of Germany had all teamed up along the way of their various adventures and were now cycling together for a while. They had all just come from Don Det, which was unsurprising because it was pretty much the only place that they could have come from, and they all spoke quite positively about it. Don Det sounded like it was going to be great, but for me Don Som was already one of the best places I could imagine for cycling. Here are about a milion pictures to prove it:

Now this is what I call a cycling superhighway!

Some cyclists making use of the cycling superhighway! David, Jan, et al heading north

Of course the children were waving and smiling. Sabadee, you little munchkins!

Paddy fields of rice and some camera-shy ducks

Lots of beaches along the way, and lots of little islands in the river made this very beautiful

Although an extraordinary number of water buffalo made finding a private beach more difficult

Flat, traffic-free, what more do you want?

Maybe I use the word perfect too much, but seriously, look!

More buffalo, and I was still searching for that private beach

With all the positive talk about Don Det I was quite looking forward to making it there myself, and was a bit dismayed when, after fifteen kilometres of the wonderful Don Som, my sandy track reached a dead-end. I could see Don Det, just across the river, but there was no ferrry docked at the small jetty that I had ended at. I couldn't see a boat on the Don Det side of the river either, so it wasn't like it was over there, and there was nobody about to ask. 'Oh well,' I thought, taking a leaf out of the locals' book, 'I'll just take it easy and wait.'

Don Det across the water, so near and yet so far

I didn't have to wait too long before a man appeared out of the bushes and spoke to me.

"Don Det?" he asked, pointing across to that island.

"Yes. Don Det. I want to go to Don Det."

"Don Det" he repeated, and pointed at the jetty.

"Yes Don Det. I want to go to Don Det. Where is the boat?"

"Don Det" he repeated once again. He pointed at me, then at the jetty, then over at Don Det.

"Yes, Don Det. Me... go... to... Don... Det. Where... is... the... boat?"

"Don Det" he said once more, "Don Det!" Then he pointed again at the jetty. That was when I noticed that the jetty had an engine attached to it. It wasn't a jetty at all, it was a ferry. God, I'm dumb. I felt a bit silly about this as I followed the man down to the jetty boat and he started up the motor. He wanted 10,000 kip for a two minute trip, but as I was the only passenger and I'd just wasted ten minutes of his life, I thought it best not to argue.

Just to prove it's a boat, here it is heading back

To describe my arrival onto the island of Don Det as a bit of a culture shock would be putting it mildly. Don Som had been a most wonderful place, where I had enjoyed peaceful cycling through what I would describe as very authentic Laos. Now, however, I suddenly found myself on a street lined with signs for boat rides and bus tours and happy shakes and kayaks and tubing tyres and Internet cafes and guesthouses and free wifi, and white people, horrible, horrible white people were EVERYWHERE. It was HORRIFIC! I wanted to turn and run and get straight back on that jetty and away from all this. But there weren't any restaurants on Dom Som and I was starving hungry, so I stayed on Don Det and wandered along until I found a less-touristy-looking place to eat some lunch.

I think I preferred it when it was covered in water buffalo

The place I stopped at was actually a guesthouse of sorts. Like many places on Don Det the family that ran it still had their house behind, where they sat in the shade like people all over Laos, but their garden was filled with wooden shacks that acted as 'bungalows.' The mother of the family was very keen for me to stay in one, but if I was going to stay I thought I'd rather stay in one of the many bungalows that stood on stilts along the river. Opposite this place there was only one bungalow over the river and it was already taken, although I don't think I would have taken it anyway, because there were a lot more stilts next to it where it seemed bungalows had once stood, and it looked very much like they had all collapsed and fallen into the river below. I imagined it would take quite a brave person to take that one bungalow that remained standing.

I didn't have to wait long to find out what kind of person would be brave enough to take that bungalow though, because the girl who was staying there came out and walked over to say hello to me. Luisa, from Sao Paulo, Brazil, was attracted to come over to me by the sight of my bike. As a keen cyclist and potential future cycle tourist herself she had a few questions for me, and we had a pleasant chat. She didn't seem to have noticed the fate that had befallen the other bungalows.

You really should take a closer look at your surroundings Luisa

After spending more time with Luisa and a Peruvian girl who lived in South Africa that went by the name of Paloma I decided that I had nothing better to do than to stay and absorb some of this backpacker culture and so I found a more sturdy-looking bungalow on the river and checked in for a couple of nights. It had a hammock and a nice view, so why not? But a few hours later this was a decision I was regretting a great deal, when the noise from the motorcycles that passed right by and the music from the bars down the street was keeping me awake, and thoughts of how horribly touristy this place was filled my head. Earlier I'd walked around for a bit trying to find Luisa and Paloma again, without success, and in doing so came to dislike my current location considerably. I wondered why all the white people even came here. This was NOT Laos. The few local people certainly did not say hello to me, and the owner of the bungalow made me pay for water, and it was clear that I was nothing but money to any of them. I couldn't say that was really their fault, it's just the way Don Det must have changed to accommodate its sudden massive tourist industry. I imagined a few years ago it must have been just like Don Som, and the difference now was startling. There was a sandy track around Don Det, just like Don Som, but this one had pasty-white tourists cycling bikes along it every few minutes. Did they really not know that they could take a two minute ferry ride and then actually cycle in Laos, instead of in this strange-fake-tourist-world? I guess not. Lonely Planet says 'take a boat to Don Det, rent a bicycle and explore the island' and that is what they must all do.

Come to think of it, I hope they never do find Don Som.

There's something not quite right about this traditional scene of island life

Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 35,963 km (22,333 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0