<\/div>Andy Chan<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
I last stood on Mekong riverbank in Saphay looking over to Donkho<\/a> in 2000. It might be 1980, the year that we left Donkho<\/a>, my island home, my birthplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back then, the river was our playground. We ran barefoot on sandbars, fished with homemade nets, and hunted grasshoppers in the dry fields or nearby islands. Donkho<\/a>\u2019s soil gave us everything: rice, sweet potatoes, beans, watermelons, herbs, vegetables any at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the tide dropped, the river revealed its secrets\u2014rocks, beaches, hidden pools\u2014and we\u2019d explore them like adventurers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donkho<\/a> has some of the best freshwater beaches anywhere in the world. Used to go for endless beach walking during sunset and had the fantastic time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But time changes things. The rice paddies look so much smaller now, divided by new roads. I don\u2019t recognize the faces of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the river stays the same. It flows as it always did, but the stranger I\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donkho<\/a> doesn\u2019t ask why I left. It doesn\u2019t need to. The island simply is \u2014a quiet reminder that home lives not in a place, but in the stories we carry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Come to visit Donkho<\/a> everyone! Homestays are available now and there are fun adventurous activities to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n