Some days it has been 39 degrees here and on the 4,0000 Islands (we stayed on Don Det) there was no breeze. The best way to stay cool is to get into the water (The Mekong River).
So first we went tubing. For 10,000 kip (87p) we rented lorry inner tubes to float down the river. Bearing in mind that the river runs fast, has 4,000 Islands in the area and some pretty big waterfalls the extensive instructions were quite something, along the lines of “This one ok? Now you go”. So we headed to the beach on the northern point of the island and asked a few other backpackers if they knew how far we could go down the East Coast and set off.
David and Fanny had thought to bring some rope to tie our shoes to a tube for the walk back – good thinking. It was pretty chilled, quite slow in places but in others the river was quite shallow and the water moved fast around other little islands. Pretty relaxing. When it got too hot you could either jump off your tube or just splash water over your legs (afternoon bit like the water buffalo who splash water on themselves with their tails). When we got to where we thought was the exit point we walked back up the island and decided to try the West Coast. We were told this was more dangerous because there are big rapids not too far away so we should head for a sand island called Jesus Island.
We had a few more people on our “pilgrimage” to Jesus Island.
The flow was much slower where we got in (we were in a big eddy) so it was very tranquil. We found the island and presume it is called this because you can walk on the water.
An Aussie lad, called Brody, decided we should all have a beer for sunset so he and Pete paddled off for supplies.
What a great way to keep cool for an afternoon!
