Don Det

After a of nights on Don Khong we headed to another island a 1.5 hour bike ride away called Don Det. This was a location right up there on Matt & Liv’s highlights of Asia list so I’d been looking forward to it. The island itself was much more scenic than Don Khong. There were many restaurants along the shore that looked out on an amazing view of the surrounding islands and river.

The main road in the town was a dirt track made muddy by the recent rains.

We checked into some bungalows where Tess had been staying for a few days. We hadn’t seen her since Luang Prabang. With the great views and relaxed atmosphere I could easily have spent a few days lazing around on Don Det. But it wasn’t to be. Nicola had had it with the insects that were constantly bothering and biting her on all sorts of body parts so she and Chris decided that they’d move on to Cambodia the next day. In Nicola’s defence the number of insects that would hover around restuarant lights in the evenings in the south of Laos was insane. You couldn’t drink a beer without a couple of insects going for a swim in it. Every few seconds you’d have to shoo some away from you. Insects don’t particularly bother me and I rarely get bitten by mites or mozzies. In general I just put up with them. My policy with insects, as with most things, is that since they can’t harm me then there’s no point getting stressed about them. Unfortunately Nicola didn’t feel the same way. She hated the bugs and freaked out whenever they touched her. The bugs knew this so they gave her more attention that anyone else. She and Chris were often suffering from bites. Sometimes Nicola’s own hair would freak her out since she’d mistake it for some kind of bug. Hahaha. Nothing I said seemed to help. It was really very funny to watch her trying to deal with the bug onslaught though. The last straw for Nicola came not long after we’d arrived on Don Det and a daring ant bit her private parts. This was quickly referred to as a “mingery”.

Peach and I decided to leave the next morning too. Our time was running out so we decided to head back to Vientiane and fly to China rather than head back up north and enter China overland. Time was of the essence.

One of the last things we did with Chris and Nicola was write a song. We scribbled down all the sayings that travellers often hear from locals whilst in SE Asia and strung them together into a tune. We called it “Kop Jai Li Li” which means “thank you very much” in Laos. We’d been talking about writing a song ever since the party in Tadlo when we’d arrived back to our guesthouse from dinner and the locals were singing karaoke. One of them handed me the microphone and I sang the only Laotian words I could think of along with the melody – which happened to be “Kop Jai Li Li”. Since then singing those words had become a regular thing between the 4 of us so we wanted to expand it into a song. I came up with a simple chord progression for the music and over dinner we scribbled down all the sayings we could think of to use as lyrics.

When we got back to our bungalows the insects had invaded our porches so we headed into Chris and Nicola’s bungalow and gave our new tune a couple of run throughs. It worked a treat. We all found it very funny and were extremely proud of ourselves. I think Nicola might have recorded a version on their camera so with any luck it’ll end up on YouTube.

Early the next morning we said our goodbyes to Chris and Nicola as they headed off to Cambodia. It was sad to say goodbye to them. We bonded really well during our time together and know that we’ll remain in contact. In fact just a couple of days ago they were passing through Melbourne and went to our friends pub for a meal. I got to talk to them on the phone there and it was great to talk to them again. They’re off to make a new life for themselves in NZ now. To Chris and Nicola I have only one thing to say: “Kop Jai Li Li”!!