Last day in Laos

Our boat left at 7 AM and it took just over an hour to get to Don Det. We had an agenda when we arrived and first thing was to figure out our transportation to Cambodia for the following day. While investigating this we both realized that we had close to no money left in our wallets and it was then that we remembered reading that there are no ATMs in the area. The closest one is back in Pakse which is a 4 hour bus ride away in the opposite direction from where we want to go. Clearly we did not think this one through before making the rushed decision to not stay (or at least use the ATM) in Pakse. So now we were in a bit of a jam. We had enough money to pay for our housing that night and to eat 2 more meals but that was it. We went to one of the travel places and began trying to figure out what our best option was and after 30 mins it seemed like there was no good option. The last thing we wanted to do was pay a bunch of money (that we didn't have) to backtrack to Pakse simply for an ATM. After more conversation with some other locals we discovered that there was a bank on the mainland only 15 minutes north of where we were. However it was Sunday meaning the bank was closed. The bus to Cambodia was to leave at 9 AM the next morning and we were able to convince the travel man to take us early to go to the bank so we could try and get money to pay for the ticket. He agreed and bumped the price of our ticket up a bit but nothing compared to the cost of having to go all the way back to Pakse.

With that speed bump temporarily taken care of we decided to seize the day. Again we rented bikes and set out to explore the island. Don Det is much smaller that Don Khong and it also is connected to another island (Don Kong) by an old railway bridge so there was a lot for us to check out. The roads however are not roads at all but rather dirt paths that are extremely rocky and bumpy which made the going slow and our butts even more sore than they already were from the previous day of biking. On our way to our first destination (Southeast Asia's largest waterfall..by volume) I hit a rock and my front tire went flat. Major bummer but I was able to walk to a place that could fix it using some crazy fire patch technique I had never seen before. After that we were back on our way and the rest of the afternoon went fairly smoothly. After seeing the waterfall we tried circumnavigate Don Kong but ended up getting lost and very confused because we were without a map. It worked out though and we got to see some old French port which overlooked Cambodia and also met up with another lost and confused biker, Joe from England. Together we were able to find our way back but in total we had been on our bikes for over 5 hours so when we finally got back we were spent and very sore (there has been limited physical activity up to this point during our trip). The rest of the night was standard - food and drinks over the river then off to bed.

-RBC