17th – We both struggled up in the morning not feeling shit hot and got on a long boat to Don Det an island further south towards the cambodian border. The river is deceptively wide however, there is a narrow well marked channel which our boat stayed in as shallows were prevalent along with many small islands. We walked 4 km which was ill advised in the heat of the sun both not feeling great for the boat ramp at Don Det across the French built railway bridge with our heavy bags to Don Kon and found a bungalow not on the river but set back a little for 40,000k. Both of us have a case of upset stomachs must have been the ice and are feeling unwell so the day was spent lying overheating in our hammocks without a fan as the island runs generators for 4 hours each day. We slept and read and generally felt sorry for ourselves though I am sure no one else would! The island was palm tree fringed and beautiful but we were only seeing the bad side of life and having a sense of humor failure. We didn’t see the dolphins as it was $10 and we were sure with the poor water quality we would only see fins from a long distance away. We wanted to kill the cockeral that was insistent under the bungalow and we had a theory of how great it would be to be able to go back to western civilisation for a few hours.

 Annabelle wants a bunch of diggers to turn up and create a clean cool swimming pool and is very happy she is travelling with a tea totaller as she couldn’t think of anything worse than having a hang over in this heat.

 

We luckily ended up in a bungalow with a traditional bamboo roof rather than the metal ones which make you feel like you are in a tin can. We seem to have the wildlife of Laos in our shack not only 2 frogs, some spiders but a rather large lizard about 12 inches long and quite big with snake like eyes. As we attempt to have dinner as we really need to eat something we start discussing snakes and travel insurance. I ask Annabelle if she has checked on the evacuation policy on her insurance as it would be really pricey to get us off this island! She says if it didn’t cover it ‘screw Lucy’s wedding, mum and dad can pay for the airlift’!!