Hello Steemians!

A few months ago my girlfriend and I visited Laos and we crossed the border in northern Cambodia, so we entered Laos from the south and the first place we headed to was Don Det and the 4000 islands. The 4000 islands are a large collection of big and small islands (many too small to stand on) located on the Mekong River that straddles the Cambodia/Laos border. The 2 main tourist islands are Don Det and Don Khon, which are located right next to each other and connected by an abandoned railway bridge. Both islands are really beautiful and relaxing and we had a lot of fun exploring and relaxing in the hammocks outside the bungalows.

My girlfriend Kama watching the sunset

The main street in Don Det

How to Get There

Getting to Don Det is easily arranged from almost anywhere through local tour agencies in Cambodia. They give you a seat on a bus or van to cross the border and drop you off at the turn off for Nadasang and have a tuk tuk arranged to take you to the boats. Crossing the border on land was pretty straight forward, everyone else in the bus was Laotian so my girlfriend and I were the only ones to get out of the van and the border had no other vehicles. However, whenever I cross borders by land in Southeast Asia there is always the standard visa fee plus the guards look at me and say "One dollar more" and I pay them and they let me through. I don't know if this is because they know they can or what but when I talk to other travelers I hear the same thing despite the websites being very clear on the border prices. We booked our bus in Stung Treng and we arrive in Don Det about 5 hours later, after crossing the border and waiting for tuk tuks and boats. The boat ride across was really nice though because it's on a small river boat shaped like a canoe that is very long and very low in the water and the boatman weaves in and around small islands to get to the Don Det pier.

The small pier in Nadasang

A short clip of the awesome boat ride in the rain

Don Det vs. Don Khon

Don Det has a reputation as being a party island, while Don Khon is more relaxed and quiet, so if you are traveling during high season you will want to keep this in mind when deciding. I have heard Don Det can get really crazy during the high season and people really come there to party hard so I wouldn't normally want to stay there. However, Don Det is home to many $5 bungalows that are very basic, simplistic and backpacker friendly while Don Khon has a little more upscale bungalows and rooms. We traveled to Don Det in low season so it was practically empty, we originally planned to spend 2 nights in the party town then 2 nights in Don Khon for a little more relaxed vibe but we ended up spending all 4 nights in Don Det because it was so quiet there and had a lot more choices for food.

The bungalows in Don Det

All bungalows include friendly dogs!

Beer Lao and a sunset

An average meal of sticky rice, beef w/ coriander and some vegetables, very cheap and very good

How To Spend Your Days

One of the main attractions in the 4000 islands is the waterfalls, and you can easily see them all either by boat trip or by renting a bicycle and exploring independently. We opted to rent bikes and go explore. Don Det has a small road around the entire outside of the island and a lot of connecting roads that pass across the island through the rice fields. On the south side of the island there is a concrete bridge built by the French for a train to carry supplies across the islands, the bridge now has no tracks and can be passed on foot/bicycle to get to Don Khon.

Riding the train bridge!

Entrance to the massive waterfall park on Don Khon

The waterfalls!

A short clip of the raging falls

There is a huge waterwheels using the diverted section of the rivers flow!

The one thing Don Det has no shortage of, beautiful sunsets

All the waterfalls are on Don Khon and the cost to use the bridge is 35,000kip/pax and you can follow the signs to the waterfall park. Once there, you can walk all over the park (it’s quite big) and check out all the waterfalls and rapids surrounding the western side of the island. They are not tall waterfalls but they are incredibly powerful, almost like large scale rapids right in the middle of the Mekong. We spent 2 days on bicycles exploring the 2 islands and I fell in love with the tranquility of it all and the chilled out pace on these little islands

I could stare at the view from the west side of the island forever

There are lots of other things to do that we opted out of because of the weather, like kayaking and seeing the Irrawaddy dolphins (we saw them in Cambodia), but rest assured the 4000 islands should not be skipped while in southern Laos. Thanks for reading and have fun!

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