Name: Don Som Riverside Guesthouse
Address: Ban Thamakheb (Village) Don Som (Island), Laos, Khong Island, Khong Island, Khong Island, 01000, Laos
Rating: 6

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Don Som Riverside Guesthouse

Khong Island

Fruendly owner and decent bungalows rite at the beach/where the boats land. Rubbish wifi but thats same all over island. You can stay super cheap here and save you money for the activities or yumny food on the island. Think we paid around 60K for a night at the basic bungalow 

Dirt cheap but a bit dirty

Pros:
- good location 
- was cheap in the rainy season 
- restaurant with a river view
- nice double room 

Cons:
- bad wifi

Overall, the private room is recommended for backpackers. The owner is nice and can help. 


Clean rooms, good location 

The owner, Jhony, is a friendly guy who even before we stayed at his establishment provided us with a variety of information. He is easy to approach, his rooms are fine for the price, and the location, while not exotic is convenient. The food is also good.  

The real problem was in the bus tickets he sold us. How much he knows about the actual transport, remains unknown. There are several posts going around about transport from Don Det to various locations in Cambodia. My dreadful experience was from Don Det, to Phnom Penh. The cost of the ticket purchased from Jhony was 30 USD. This is naturally a lot more than a local would pay, but we believed that the price would streamline the trip and increase comfort. We were supposed to arrive that night in Phnom Penh. However, this was not the case. For the 30 USD it included a simple boat ride to mainland, and a short crowded mini bus to the border. Both easily done without pre-booking an all-inclusive ticket. From the border, we waited for several unnecessary hours before boarding another crowded and not that nice mini bus to the town of Stung Trang. Of course, the mini bus does not go to the bus station, but to some relatives’ restaurant outside of town where we have no option but to eat the overpriced, but decent meal. We then changed buses, to an even crappier mini bus to the town of Kracheh (Kratie) where some travelers were leaving and the rest heading on to Phnom Penh. This mini bus was a full on junk box, the exact kind you would find at any bus station. The only benefit, it was not over crowded. Arriving early evening in Kracheh the real fireworks happen. At this point, the bus driver refuses to continue to Phnom Penh. We call the tour operator and it becomes obvious that we are being massively screwed over. The tour operator, not the driver, who speaks no English, told us via the phone to spend the night at a crappy hotel paid by the company, and then continue the next day onto Phnom Penh on a super over crowded mini bus. Obviously, the one-day trip in supposed comfort turns into two days and not at all worth the 30 USD. There is some scam at play, and its full extent is not entirely understood. 

The key is that there are a few travel options leaving Don Det for 30 USD. We knew of others who actually boarded a full size bus at the Cambodia/Lao border, which took them directly to Phnom Penh. This is really the desired option. The problem is, many of the people selling the bus tickets in Don Det might not know how crappy some travel options are, or they know, and they don’t care because they are in business together. I would just make sure you research bus tickets ahead of time.

Friendly owner, descent rooms, awful travel arrangement

This is a tough review to write as the owner of this place, Jhony, is a really friendly guy. And his rooms and "hangover" breakfast are definitely great value for money.  And he never tried to push anything on us, but did end up hooking us up with the worst transportation scam I've ever experienced.  And what's worse is he said one of his relatives worked for the travel company.  My friend and I paid 30 USD for a "bus" ticket to Phnom Penh.  We were supposed to get into Phnom Penh by 9PM the same day (we left Don Det on the boat at 8AM).  Besides making us wait for a few hours at the border for no apparent reason, and changing minibuses in Stung Trang, things seemed fairly normal.  But when we got to Kracheh (Kratie) at 7:30PM at night, which is still 4 hrs from Phnom Penh, and they said they would not drive us any farther, it became very clear that we were getting screwed over.  After a lot of discussion the tour operator (who's number we got from a guy clearly involved in this mafia at the hotel where we got dropped off) said we had to spend the night in the hotel and then we could get on the first bus to Phnom Penh in the morning.  I had to work the next day so we instead opted to hire a private car to take us the rest of the way that night for $35.  DO NOT LET ANYONE IN DON DENG SELL YOU A BUS TICKET WHICH IS ASSOCIATED WITH PARAMOUNT ANGKOR EXPRESS BUS COMPANY!  THEY ARE A BUNCH OF CRIMINALS! Some other people we met bought tickets that put them on an actual bus (not minibus) at the border with Cambodia, which then took them to Phnom Penh with no scams.  They also paid $30 USD.  Be very careful which bus ticket you buy, and Jhony, please don't sell anybody else the same bus ticket even if your relative helps run the business.  It is also going to make people look at you and your hotel badly!

Very nice owner, but careful which bus ticket you buy from him

The bungalows are right at where the boats leave you which is quite handy. The guy who runs the place seemed friendly enough & had decent enough English but none of the other staff had good English and didn't seem to be friendly or show any interest in the guests even when ordering food.

We stayed in one of the air con bungalows. Which was clean & had hot water. The wifi was pretty poor & we were close enough to the bar so I presume other rooms further away had worse wifi or none at all. 

Plenty of restaurants & bars quite close to the accommodation. Everything closes down quite early here. 

We wanted to get our laundry cleaned here. We weighed our laundry before handing it in at the reception so we knew what to expect to pay. To my surprise one of the staff weighed the clothes & it was nearly double the weight we had! I explained that I had weighed the clothes already & it wasn't that heavy. The owner then tried to convince me that my scales wasn't for weighing clothes even though it is a luggage scales & we had a just recently got off a flight so we knew it was accurate. In the end I took the laundry back and got it done down the road where the scales weighed the clothes the same as our scale... funny that. 

It's a pity that this happened as the accommodation is not so bad for the price paid for it. 

Don Som Riverside Guesthouse

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