Four Thousand Islands - Well, Three... (as in 3.)

Our trip down to the Four Thousand Islands (a misnomer if there ever was one) was, erm, who knows? It was about five weeks ago and nothing of any note really happened. Suffice to say we arrived, despite there being 26 of us in a 14 man minibus. Cosy.

What I do remember is that once we had squeezed our increasingly sore rears out of the bus and onto the rickety long boat out to the islands, the boatman dropped us off at a spot where there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING apart from his cafe and hostel. Which were shite. After a repugnant lemon ice tea, Helen set off in the direction of the rest of civilisation, only to return an hour later, sweaty, angry and a little bit confused.

There was simply nothing to do here. These islands were meant to be a place where you can sit back, think of nothing and meet like-minded people. But I suppose that's also how you could describe Purgatory.

This puny isle of nada was called Don Det, and it had one, and only one, interesting character on it. Namely the lady that ran the 'Reggae Bar'. She spent her days screaming and shouting at everyone, albeit in an unaggressive tone, and dancing round to three Bob Marley songs on repeat - seemingly not noticing that the CD had more scratches on it than Sheer Kahn's scratch post and twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

I'm going to completely skip the nothingness of this island - apart from to tell you that it didn't stop raining (the torrential downpours came on the hour every hour, like some kind of prostitute alarm clock) - as I have another 3999 to go through. (Is he kidding? Let's read on...)

The next island, Don Khon, was on the whole a lot more exciting. Mr Sun had his hat on for a little bit, and we booked into a nice hut thing in a hostel that contained both the healthiest, excruciatingly fun puppy and the smelliest, rankest dog that has ever had the misfortune to survive it's abortion.

Needless to say, Muttley the Wonder Stink ate better than I did for the next few days, courtesy of Ms Helen Doolittle.

Here we went on a bike ride and a half around the island, which included riding up to the banks of the biggest (in volume of water) 'waterfalls' in South East Asia.

These are probably better described for your mind's eye as a huge fuck off river spreading as far as you can see, ripping across and down the landscape in a sort of ordered chaos that would happily sweep you off into oblivion at the drop of your hat or, as we nearly experienced, a failing of your brakes.

This was pretty amazing, which makes it all the more of a shame that the camera really couldn't capture the scale of them. Or indeed the noise, which was thunderous (although that could have been actual thunder).

This island was still just a pile of mud with people and huts on, but it also had the remnants of an attempt at making a road, meaning that we could actually walk around and see a bit of it without losing our newly brazen legs to the brown gooslop of Laos.

After our mammoth bike ride we went back to our surprisingly comfortable little cabin and lay out the hammock, which I got to swing in first because I am the boy. It's the law.

Our nextdoor neighbours, the incredibly Australian Ross and Deirdre, came out and joined us on the veranda and we had a good old chinwag about our travels so far. A self-confessed gadget-freak, Ross kept trying to show me his GPS radar system thing - casually dropping in - 'It's a sort of smaller version of what I've got on the boat back home, on the boat. Did I mention I have a boat and that I like boats? Boats.'

Next to join the party were the dastardly duo of Harry (real name Paul - fuck knows, don't ask) and Lekhina. Harry was, and by all accounts still is, a lovely bloke in his late thirties from Southshields. He's been over in Cambodia for a good few years, with his fingers in a few pies with his other Geordie mate Phil, selling ice-creams at temples and setting up websites about hostels. Lekhina is his unflappable girlfriend of a few years, from Siem Reap in Cambodia. They were in Laos for a two-week holiday, and had the cabin a few doors up from us.

These two were comedy gold, mostly because Harry would often (as characteristically, as we've now realised, as any ex-pat), slag off Cambodia and Lekhina would tell him in a thick Khmer/Geordie accent to 'Pisz off man! Why you live there then?!' Although we didn't know it then, Harry and Lekhina would pepper our next few weeks with a fair few cameos.

We also met three lovely Irish girls called Martina, Caroline and Sarah, who were travelling with another Irish chap called Brian. They were very nice indeed but it wasn't until we left the 4000 islands to go to Cambodia that we got to know them properly.

The last island that we visited was called Don Khong. This sounded a bit like Donkey Kong. This was almost the best thing about it. Donkey Kong Island was another step up in built up-edness, with big old hotels, and rather fancy riverside restaurants selling fried rice at eight times the recommended retail price.

It also had electricity twenty-four hours a day! Coming from the other islands, this was like stepping into a scene from Blade Runner filmed in the Industrial Zone of the Crystal Maze!

On the boat there the rain was coming down so hard that it was bouncing off the river and back into the boat. Kids on the shore were running along shouting 'BYE BYE!' and waving at us, and I started the game that whoever stops waving first loses. They didn't realise we were playing that game, but it didn't matter. If you waved at them they would wave back. Ad infinitum.

One lad was so busy shouting 'BYE BYE', sprinting as fast as he could and waving that he fell on his face. He didn’t get up either. It was horrific. Yet absolutely hilarious.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that as we got off the boat onto Donkey Kong, who should we bump into as soon as we jump off the boat but Edward Wellard of Ginger Hair fame. Coincidence? No, everyone does the same trip round here, I've explained this before.

We're all just fucking time-wasters.