So after much deliberation it seemed the best way to get to the 4,000 Islands was to get a sleeper bus to Paxse which left sometime between midnight and 1am. The guy at Wang Wang guesthouse said kindly if we slept he would come and wake us and, just after 1am, he did just that. We were taken to a roadside stop (read a few lit stalls at the side of the road) and at gone 2am the bus arrived. This sleeper bus was different and had an upstairs which was set out for sleeping with a narrow double mattress on each side of the aisle and each of these matresses was two “beds” for which you also got two pillows and two duvets. We thought about top and tailing as our shoulders barely fitted in next to each other but neither of us fancied having blood rushing to our head every time the bus braked.
On the plus side, wedged in you didn’t feel quite so likely to fall out when the road got twisty and rough. I did however have a little giggle a couple of times when it felt like we were on a roller coaster and we were bouncing up an down quite spectacularly.
At Paxse (5.5 hours later) we switched to another aircon bus for a further 2.5 hours to the port of Ban Nakasang. We passed a truck on its side and had some close calls with animals en route, which is just a usual Lao bus ride I guess.
We were quite convinced we would need to buy boat tickets again to Don Det, even though I had double checked with our “sales guy” that the ferry was included. Sure enough at the ticket office we were asked to wait to one side and we thought – here we go. However, after some checking and phone calls later, two boat tickets were handed over to us and we were told to board the boat – What a result! !!!!
And so, here we are on Don Det and this is the view from our balcony.
We will be exploring the islands and Mekong River tomorrow (once we’ve had some quality sleep tonight) 😪
