Walking the length of Don Det & Don Khon

We started our day with the intention of a bike ride around our little connecting islands, but by the time we had breakfast and headed over to the small restaurant where we could rent bikes from a local family it had gone 10am. After asking for two bikes alongside a German couple also staying in our guesthouse, we waiting for about an hour for them to turn around and tell us they only had two. So as we were late to the party, we let the other couple use the two bikes and we decided to stretch our legs and go for a hike up to Don Det village. Setting off we started to enjoy the sights and sounds of the rainforest hoping for a peak of one of the sets of waterfalls or rapids nearby. As the road went through the middle of the island we ended up seeing a few local families in their houses and a few herds of cattle. Before crossing over to Don Det, we got to the 'Historic Bridge' which is a stone bridge built by the French in the 1800's to connect both the islands. As it was the hottest part of the day, the time seemed right to try a papaya shake and passion fruit juice, these were both delicious and we thought we would further experiment with some garlic bread. Now the drinks were brilliant, and we had high hopes for the garlic bread, unfortunately whatcame out was a baguette with a lot of raw garlic and butter in the centre (which we ate anyway).
Crossing the bridge we got some beautiful views of the Mekong and continued to find rice paddy's and other farmland before reaching the main village of the Islands. Here there were many more restaurants, guesthouses and rental shops and we wandered through until we got to the other end at which point we turned back to get some lunch at the 'Smiling Laos'. We soon realised we had reached the weed-centre of the island and what all the 'happy' items on the menu meant. We declined the extras and went for a simple pumpkin burger and red curry which were delicious. We wondered if the local cats were lazying around because of the heat or if they had consumed some extra special treats.
Afterwards, we set to our next task - the return journey. We retraced our steps all 7km back to our guesthouse, totally 16.2km so far today, which we were quite impressed with given the 35 degree heat and near 100% humidity. We rewarded ourselves with a shower and some cold drinks as the sun set. We are about to now head over to the other side of the old port to find some dinner.Read more