Jan 12th 2012, Don Khon, Sampo

Our long journey south has taken us to Si Phan Don, i.e. the 4000 islands. It is a rather large grouping of, surprise surprise, islands, between which the Mekong river slowly flows towards Cambodia. Before coming here, we spent one night in Savannakhet and two nights in Pakse. Both were small towns with quite little to do, except for savouring the relaxing atmosphere and enjoying local food. We did rent bikes for a couple of hours in Pakse, though, and managed to see a little more than just the inside of our hotel room. However, these towns were just waypoints on our journey towards the ultimate level of relaxation to be found on Don Khon.



Our gang has temporarily grown from four to six. When leaving Pakse on a minibus, we happened to sit next to two Finnish girls, who also thankfully let us know of their nationality before we blurted out anything stupid in our native language. We've spent some time together on the islands and will travel together to Phnom Penh tomorrow, before going our separate ways again. Obviously our clever wit and sophisticated sense of humour make us the perfect company to travel with. On the other hand, the ladies decided to come from Luang Prabang straight to the islands, enjoying nearly 30 hours of Lao bus travel in one go. So it might just be that they hang out with us because they're out of their minds.

Life on Si Phan Don is concentrated mainly on three islands. Tourism is concentrated on two small ones called Don Det and Don Khon, which are connected by an old bridge. Don Det has plenty of bars and restaurants, and its more for the partying types. The old, lazy fancypants go to Don Khon, which is a lot more quiet and relaxed. We chose the latter. Our guesthouse had double beds, so naturally the Minister of Lottery had to get to work again. Indescribable happiness ensued when Olli and Peltsi won another three nights with each other. What were the odds of this happening four times in a row? We calculated: 1,2 percent.



The past two days have probably been the most chilled-out time I have had in my entire life. The best activity here is to simply lie in a hammock while the Mekong slowly flows by and watch the sun set behind the green hills of a neighbouring island. This, combined with the occasional sip from a cold bottle of Beerlao, has allowed us to reach a previously unimaginable state of relaxation. Doing absolutely nothing has never felt this good.

We haven't been just lying around, though. We went cycling a bit with rented bikes on Tuesday and on Wednesday, and managed to see most of both islands. Yesterday we also tried out tubing, which is basically the national sport in Laos, practiced by everyone but the locals. It consists of lying in a large inner tube while slowly floating downstream on the Mekong river. This sport often involves beer as well. The level of relaxation can be compared to that of lying in a hammock.

We have now been in Laos for nearly two weeks, and tomorrow we'll cross the border to Cambodia. Travelling through Laos has been a very interesting experience, and we have really enjoyed our time here (only Esa has periodically found reasons to complain). The general pace of life is just somehow slower in here: it's as if the people move slower than anywhere else. This is not to say that the people are lazy – on the contrary, they seem to work from sunrise till sunset – but they do everything in a stress-free manner and without hurrying. I'd say there's a lot we could learn from them.



At the same time, Laos is still a very poor and undeveloped country, and a great number of people live on subsistence farming. Things are changing fast, though: like China, Laos has opened up for private business and its economy is growing very rapidly. At the same time, more and more tourists are drawn here by the warm climate, beautiful nature and ridiculously low prices. A telling example of the transformation is that the 2010 edition of Lonely Planet is already completely outdated when it comes to information about the availability of services (ATMs and cash exhange for example) in different cities. Tourism indeed seems to be the driving force behind the changes – where there are tourists, there you can also find hot showers, ATMs, restaurants, bars and cafes. The clientele of any restaurant is almost uniquely white, as very few locals seem to spend their money on such luxuries.



I'll be leaving Laos with some mixed feelings, too. It's hard not to feel guilt about the mere fact that we can afford to fly here from the other side of the world and buy cheap stuff, while most of the people here live on so little. I guess the only consolation is that like all tourists, we are bringing a lot of money in and thus supporting the local economy. But still. I'm also not sure about what the locals really think of us – of course almost everyone has been extremely friendly, but at the same time they must be pretty confused about how much things have changed since tourists were allowed in the country in the 1990s. If they're displeased, they're not going to show it, though. And it's not like they really have a choice.

We have another 12-hour bus ride planned for tomorrow, so I guess we'll spend most of today lying on our backs. I'm very interested in seeing what Cambodia is like, but damn, it's going to be difficult to leave behind mankind's greatest invention: the hammock.