We’ve left the capital behind now, and have traveled south to the island of Don Daeng in the Champasak province; we’re booked into the La Folie, a brand spanking new lodge on the banks of the Mekong with a picturesque view across the water towards the Holy Mountain of Phu Pasak. Laos is a landlocked country, but with fishermen working the river, sandy banks and beautiful scenery this place definitely has an untouched coastal nature to it.

It was an excruciatingly early morning as we packed off to the airport. Internal flights don’t run very often in Laos, and there isn’t much choice in departure times to this particular part of the country. It was only a very short flight though, and despite a late take-off it was still only mid-morning by the time we landed in our first waypoint of Pakse.

An hour’s taxi-ride to the docks in Ban Muang followed by a smoother than expected boat ride up to the island found us at the lodge with practically no effort whatsoever. There were no nasty surprises and no awkward, captive haggling with vehicle owners (which is an amazing and refreshing change for us.

There was only one thing that worried me slightly, and that was the makeshift catamaran used to ferry us and our belongings to the lodge; made up of two long canoes, a wooden deck tied to the top and a two stroke engine powering it the whole thing looked like it might come apart at the seams. Seating was by means of two whicker chairs, sitting loosely on the deck in a manner that looked like they might slide right into the Mekong. There was no need to worry as it turned out - the thing was more stable than ground we were standing on. As for the chairs; well, we’ve got to sit on something.

Once we had explored or new digs and settled in, we set out for walk along the only road on the island; a dusty track that runs the circumference of the island. Expecting it to be slightly void of goings-on, we found a thriving and friendly local community, mostly hanging out under their (stilted) houses keeping out of the heat, but waving and wishing us “Sabai dee!” as we walked past. Even the children here are friendly, rushing up to you and waving (and in one instance, handing Emma a small posy of flowers).

We walked back to the lodge via the riverbank, where if you could ignore the opposite bank, you would believe you were walking along the coastline of an untouched beach; to do so would entirely miss the point however, as you’ll be missing out on some fabulous mountain scenery silhouetted in the late afternoon sunlight.