Don Dhet

Referred to by some as Khao San Road on the river, if nothing else the scenery here is far better than at KSR. Now well-established on the traveller trail through Laos, the number of rooms on Don Dhet continues to climb steadily. The scenery is indeed very...well...scenic, and the ambience of the place very relaxed, but Laos this is not.

If you're on the way here expecting to experience the local culture, prepare to be very, very disappointed. If on the other hand, all you want to do is relax in a hammock for a week (or a month) meet and talk to travellers and eat traveller food with yet more travellers, then you're in the right place.

Certainly a beautiful area, daily sunsets and sunrises are equally stunning, there's a wealth of activities -- waterfalls, boat trips, cycling trips, hiking, camping and extended hammock laying -- with which you can busy yourself with for days or weeks.

You can easily visit nearby Don Khon by crossing the French Bridge, where there are great waterfalls, rusty trains, and the occasional glimpse of an Irrawady dolphin.

Don Dhet has yet to be hooked up to Laos main electrical grid -- we were told a few years back that it was set to arrive mid 2006, but as of our revisit in December of that year -- not so much. The locals get by running computers and sound systems off car batteries during the day, and the generators kick in at sunset and run until about 23:00. River breezes keep the rooms pretty cool most of the day even without fans, but morning on the sunrise side and afternoons on the sunset side can get pretty toasty.

In anticipation of these changes, a working group has been formed to try to establish a degree of planning into the ongoing development of the island to try to maintain some degree of control over what is happening now and what will happen in the future.

 

Encouragingly, they are using the example of Vang Vieng as an example of exactly what they do NOT want to happen, so at least they are getting off on the right step. Apparently the main focus in centring around controlling the burgeoning development and establishing a pricing system where the farmers and others who are running these establishments will start to receive a more sustainable level of income from their operations -- yes $1 rooms will not be here forever.

The view is towards shifting the pricing structure from what is not generally $1 a night (although in some cases people are still bargaining their room cost down to zero) to a more sustainable level of $2-3, with a longer term goal of $4-5 a night -- at which time rooms with private bathroom and electricity will be more the norm.

It is the belief that when most places are charging prices at this level, they will be able to earn enough to better maintain their bungalows in a financially independent manner (the roofs and walls may be made of thatch, but they still cost money and still need to be replaced) without needing to go to moneylenders which in many cases is what is happening now. Please consider the long term sustainability of a business when you stand there wearing your $300 backpack bargaining a $1 room to nothing.

The accommodation on Don Dhet runs along three sides of the island, the north-west side (sunset side), the north-east side (sunrise side) and the southeast side (facing Don Khon).

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