Practising the art of getting out of a hammock with a beer in hand

We arrived safely in hammock flopping Mecca, otherwise known as 'four thousand islands' or properly named Si Pan Don. This place, made up of many islands in the Mekong river, is right on the border of Cambodia and with blistering heat, yet heavy clouds, it's a grand place to chill for a while.

I imagine this part of the world is maybe what the Thai islands were like say 70 years ago. With more village folk than fallang (foreigners) its sleepy island life all the way here. The paddy fields are fluorescent green, the old men amble along with huge spiffs hanging from their lips, and the water buffalo are so docile you have to step around them. So far everywhere we've stopped in Laos has been quiet and laid back, but here things got even more horizontal. This is most typified by the service we received, if you want a drink or even to pay you have to actively seek someone out to assist you, I don't think the Laotians are that bothered about profiting from Tourism. The only thing that's missing on these islands is an ocean as at this time of year the Mekong runs pinky/brown and dangerously quickly, so we could do no more than paddle in its murky waters.

We were here to relax, but that doesn't come easy to busy bees like us. So much so on our first day we found we had unknowingly walked 12 miles. You see it's easy to do in a place like this (even when your flip flop gives up the ghost as mine did) because the islands are so serene. We walked from Don Det (the island we were calling home) all the way to the bottom of Don Khon (they are connected by a bridge you see). From Don Khon we could see Cambodian land clearly, but we were also fortunate enough to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins, who popped there fins up to say hello.

Besides checking out the almost extinct creatures, these islands also have cycling, huge gushing waterfalls and empty beaches on offer. So we checked out of the day to day and chill-axed for three days.

Every now and again on this travelling trip we feel like we get to enjoy a bit of 'real' holiday time. For example the whole of the South islands in Thailand, Sihanoukville in Cambodia, Halong Bay in Vietnam, and now we can add four thousand islands to that list.

Today, it's back to city life as we are catching a night bus all the way to Vientiane, Laos capital city. Though I'm not holding out much hope for even a Laos city to step up the tempo much, as this is a country that lives by the motto, 'relax - take it easy'. So I guess that's what we'll do.