New Year

The Buddhist New Year is approaching. It's called 'Songkran' in Thai, I forgot the term in Lao. I opt for being as far away from any bigger city as possible. In Laos it's probably fairly calm, but...
It's celebrated by - among other things - throwing water at anything that moves, either in plastic bags, with buckets, or - kid's favourite - by shooting with water pistols. This goes on for three days in a row, in major cities and especially in Thailand it can last for up to one week. The official holidays in Laos are the 14., 15. and 16 of April.
Of course it's something more than just trying to get the rest of the world as wet as possible... families unite, spend some days together, there are parties everywhere, it's three days of fun, the water is just one aspect of many... yet sort of annoying if this goes on for several days and one can't walk 50 meters away from the guest house without being soaked immediately...
That's why I chose a very remote place to stay at during the following days. I'll spend the time on the so-called 4000 Islands. The name derives from the landscape formed by the Mekong south of Pakse. The river broadens, fans out and creates something like a network of channels with a lot of small islands in between, which is even more apparent in the dry season. It's quite touristy there, of course, but one doesn't have to stay on the few well-known and busy islands. There are other options... I think that I'm heading to Don Khong, which is the biggest of these islands, but apparently one which still offers some solitude and is not that crowded... supposedly we're in the low season, but it doesn't really look like it...