There is only one land border between Cambodia and Laos, and it is known to be the most corrupted border asking additional fees including a far away-border fee because it is, well, in the middle of nowhere. We reached there after a one night stay in a closet town and a minivan ride full of backpackers. Once we agreed to pay additional couple of dollars, everything ran smoothly and we continued to our first stop in Laos.

Even though Laos is the only Southasian country without seaside, it’s most southern district is called Si Phan Don (4000 Islands) because the Mekong River here forms this beautifully structured islands. There are 3-4 big islands where people live, the rest are too small to be inhabited.

We extended our stay here to a week in two of these islands after loving it so much. It is also a nice spot while coming from Cambodia as it is only 30 minutes away from the border. Already at the first boat trip to the islands (with small wooden long boats), the nice view strikes you.

The nature within the island was very nice, everything could be easily reached by bikes. From the riverside to the small forests and waterfalls.

The two islands we stayed at are also connected through a bridge, so we could cycle around all the time in both but the regular transport is achieved by small wooden boats again.

Most of the houses are the traditional anti-flood wooden houses which we were used to from Cambodia. We were staying in small bungallows in a cute place a bit more remote:

From there we even saw swimming buffalos, moving from one island to the other!

We visited two waterfalls in the area, actually world’s widest waterfall is also in this area but it is a bit further away and the smaller ones were just enough for us.

Don Det (the most famous of these islands among the tourists) is quite a backpacker island, with reggae bars, possibility to smoke weed or have “happy” food, there were some parties organised. Louis could even join a french DJ behind the decks in a smallbar one evening!

Laos - as being a communist country - has actually midnight curfew. They don’t bother with people walking on the street too much but businesses should stop at 11 pm and guesthouses require you to come back before midnight.

While we were in these islands, they had a local festival that happens only 4 times a year, in which this curfew was also not in effect. Everyone including babies and older people living in those island were there. We went to bed quite early but heard that the party went on until sunrise at 6 am.

In that festival we were introduced to Laos music and dancing (or more generally south east Asia, as many songs actually comes from Thailand initially) and saw what we noticed repeatedly in Laos that there is a surprisingly huge techno music (rather commercial type though) love in Laos: Laotian people love to celebrate!