Pan's Guesthouse — Hotel in Don Khon

I booked Pan's bungalows in September 2016 for our August 2017 trip to Don Khone. ||The owner, Mr. Pan, was always reply to my e-mail promptly, which is very important for me to chose an accommodation. ||||I chose this place for the several reasons: || 1. Reasonable price (US$26/night) || 2. Each bungalow has a private porch with an excellent view of Mekong River || 3. They have an airport transfer from Paske Airport (US$100/2 pax) || 4. They have currency exchanges to/from USD from/to Lao kip || 5. They book bus tickets to Cambodia (border crossing) || 6. They have a laundry service.||||He picked us up at the airport and stopped at a small village along the road for us to have local food for lunch. The accommodation is very close to the boat launch place at Don Khone (a few minute walk). The bungalow is very spacious. Free breakfast that his wife prepares was simple yet great, which comes with a baguette baked by the local baker on Don Khone - It was so fresh and good that I was able to tell that it was made by hand from scratch. Mr. Pan said that the baker bakes by hand every day and only limited number of bread is sold. They did a good job on our laundry - Everything was dried under he natural sun, which we wanted, so that our cloths don't shrink. The price for the laundry was very cheap (by kg). ||||When we asked Mr. Pan to organize a tour to see water falls and dolphins, he said to bicycle by ourselves and get to the places to see the falls and to get on the boat to see dolphins. He was right! We were able to do all by ourselves without an expensive tour. Rental bicycle was 10,000 kip/day. I had some Lao kip left on the last day and Mr. Pan exchanged the Lao kip back to US$ cash. He gave me a very generous rate, US$1 = 8,333 Kip! When I exchanged from US$ to Lao kip in Luang Prabang, the rate was US$1 = 8,360 Kip. ||||The border crossing bus to Cambodia - Please ask Mr. Pan! He will get you the right tickets. After reading all of horrible stories about border crossing busses to get to Cambodia, I was very nervous about the tickets. Mr. Pan was well aware of the stories and he said that he would book with Phnom Penh Sorya bus for us (1 ticket including a boat ride from Don Khone to Kratie was US$22). But, when we were there at the beginning of August, we found that there was only one bus leaving from Phnom Penh to get to Paske on Monday, and the same bus returns from Paske to Phnom Penh on Tuesday. And it repeats the same thing on Wednesday from Phnom Penh and returns from Paske to Phnom Penh on Thursday, and another set on Friday and Saturday. And there is no bus on Sunday. I don't know if the schedule is always the same throughout the year, though. Luckily, we were planning to go to Cambodia on Tuesday, so we didn't have to change our plan. The boat driver came to pick us up at Pan's guest house at 8:00am. When we got to the bus station in Nakasong, a guy from Sorya bus was correcting US$40/person to get a visa on arrival including the visa fee. We filled out the forms by ourselves and gave him the forms, passports, and money (US$ cash note shall not be torn at all! Or, the guy wouldn't take it). The bus from Paske arrived about 15 minutes late. When we arrived at the border, we didn't have to get off the bus to go through the border! We waited at a small "restaurant" after the border at Cambodia side for about 1 hour while the guy was processing everything for us. And we all got passport back with a visa! Great! We got on the same bus (so our backpacks stayed in the bus storage all the way throughout our bus trip). We got off the bus at Kratie around 4:30pm although the schedule said 3:00pm. Well, overall, everything went well and I was so relieved. Note: I was worried about toilet since I have to go to toilet very often like every 2 hours. There is a toilet at Nakasong bus stop. To get to the border from Nakasong, it took only 15-20 min. and there was a toilet at the small restaurant where we had to wait to get our passport back. When the bus stopped at Stung Treng, I went to toilet. And the bus stopped 30min before arriving at Kratie for a meal break and I went to toilet. So, if you are worried about toilet for this long trip, do not worry, I made it!||||Anyway, Mr. Pan is the one who can help you for all you need before you go to Cambodia from Laos! Please go to stay at Pan's place! His wife is very nice, too! Mr. Pan, thank you very much...

Pros -- conveniently located within steps of the "ferry" dock; clean by SEA standards; the bed was decent only because there were two in the room and we chose to sleep on the mattress not the box spring. Asians haven't figured out that the two actually go together. Two beds for the price of one? The shower was separate from the toilet. A HUGE plus!!||||Cons -- The "office" was never occupied. We never officially checked in, but some random girl brought a key and let us into our room. We had reservations for two nights but, after losing electricity (in the entire town) two nights in a row, we left. When the electricity goes out, so does the water because the pump won't work. When we checked out, we suddenly met Pan, who spoke decent English. Up until then, we didn't see one person who seemed to understand us or care. With lots of sign language, the breakfast server finally understood that we had no power -- when the rest of the building did. Did anyone check on us? NO! The WiFi works better from the restaurant across the road so we bought a coffee to get the password, then walked back to our room to use theirs instead of Pan's. If we'd broken an ankle trudging through the mud and potholes, where would we have gotten help? Not from Pan, that's for sure. Thank God for Fred at Chez Fred et Lea, up the road. He fed us great food and got us tickets to escape the end-of-the-world island.||||My husband was looking forward to seeing the history of this area. By this point of our trip, I was ready to find the nearest airport that could get me back to the first world. We aren't young and we should have done this kind of crazy travel 40 years ago. Now that we are safe at home, I can honestly say I am glad we did this crazy trip, but my husband owes me a luxury trip to Europe!! After 6 weeks in...

The bungalow we had overlooked the river; the view was beautiful and it was very peaceful and quiet (until a noisy family turned up next door.) The guesthouse is in a great location too (as soon as you get off the boat on the island walk up to the main street and turn right, you’ll see the place on your right hand side). The owner was really nice and friendly and his English is really good. He booked our ongoing trip and charged less than everyone else we asked on the island.||||Now, for the bad: The guys in their restaurant don’t really care about good customer service. They’ll play on their phones and ignore customers. I watched groups of people leave on a few occasions because no one was around or wanted to go serve them. The food at the restaurant is nothing special and the lack of service didn’t make us want to come back. The other bad thing is that the walls are paper-thin and you can hear everyone walking around (or stomping, as our neighbours did.) ||||Overall, it’s a great place to stay if you get one of the rooms out the back and you don’t have neighbours. In the hot season splash out and get air con, it's gets really hot and the fans don't really do much. You can lay back and relax on your hammock and watch the sunset too. As for food, there are far better options available on the island so walk around and check them out. ||||There's only one place that we found (can't remember the name, sorry) that does a duck larp: it's incredibly tasty! When you come out of the guesthouse turn left and walk up the main street about 100m, it's on your left hand side. ||||There's also a second set of waterfalls in the opposite direction to the ones you have to pay for. They're free to enter and less touristy in the morning, ask the owner and he'll tell you...