Hey everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. To those of you in the UK, I hope you’re carrying those happy sunshine summertime vibes into these coming winter months.
If you’re reading my blog for the first time, welcome! I’m Belle, your average 22 year old globetrotting and finding herself in SE Asia (joking not joking). I’m making my way to Australia to do my working holiday visa and from there I have no idea what the future holds. This blog is documenting my adventure and hopefully inspiring those of you who are on the fence about taking time out to travel solo to just go for it. If you want to find out more about me, scroll down to my first ever post and have a read:) I’m currently in Vietnam, but yes, still writing about Laos!
I’ve learnt that it’s kind of impossible to keep up to date with blogging without seeming totally unsociable. Apart from long bus journeys, it’s rare that I have time to just sit down and write. I mean, I do... but like, I’m also a sociable person and don’t want to be that girl sitting in the corner typing away on her phone all the time. That’s another thing, blogging from a phone is a bit of a pain (I tend to make more mistakes and my thumbs cramp up.) I’m very excited to be reunited with my laptop soon! I get some time to chill on my phone before bed... but I always end up falling asleep within 5 minutes because I’m so exhausted. Travel really does take it out of you sometimes.
This will be my last blog post about Laos, then I’ll be moving onto Cambodia. I’ve been having the most incredible time filled with ups and downs, tears and laughter, and have met people that will be friends for life. I’ve only been travelling for about a month and a half, but it feels like I’ve been gone for so much longer.
Any ways, back to the blog... so, what did we get up to in Don Det?
Don Det is a small island, part of the 4000 Mekong river islands in the south of Laos. This was our last stop in Laos before crossing the border into Cambodia. If you want a place where it feels like time stands still and you can chill out to the max with some pretty sick views, Don Det is great. It’s also really really cheap! We were only there for one night, so didn’t have much time to do many of the activities. Activities include kayaking, zip lining, tubing or a waterfall tour. I’m not really a big fan of kayaking, we were all a bit waterfalled out... and by that point none of us had the energy to zip line. God, we sound like a miserable bunch...but after a long day of travel all you really want to do is chill out. I’m sure we would have done more of the activities if we had more time, but you can’t do everything!
We ended up opting for the tubing. We had so much fun tubing in Vang Vieng we thought it would be a good choice. Bad, bad decision. Tubing in Don Det is nothing like tubing in Vang Vieng. It was awful. The guy basically just took us up the river in a boat for about 15 minutes and dumped us in the water with our tubes so that we could float back to where we started.
There was hardly any current so we were pretty much just floating in muddy disgusting water in the baking heat with an average view of the riverbank. The whole thing was meant to last 2 hours. 15 minutes in and we’d had enough. I waved for the guy in the boat to come collect us. At least we would get there faster! At the the rate we were going it seemed like it would have taken us 5 hours.
I told the guy we didn’t like it and wanted to stop, he couldn’t care less really and just sort of laughed. We were all laughing too. You really have to find the humour in such ridiculous or disappointing situations. On the bright side, we got half of our money back! It only cost like £4, but every little helps.
To top off our series of unfortunate events in Don Det, we were absolutely starving and had to wait an hour for our food to come. That being said, my yellow curry was delicious. Our top hangout place was the 4000 islands bar... the food is great and the service is fast! It’s also probably the most social part of the island... even though it seemed like we were the only tourists there.
I guess it would be fair to say that low season in Don Det is, well... very low. It’s a great place to chill out and relax, but I’d say you could find nicer backpacker paradises in SE Asia. Been there, Don Det and probably won’t be going back!
Over all, Laos was definitely worth visiting and I met some absolute legends along the way. The scenery is stunning, the people are welcoming and it’s hella cheap.
More content about Cambodia coming soon! Please subscribe below to be updated by email every time a new post is published:)
Big love,
Belle x
Comments