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Most make for the island of Don Det, where accommodation is cheap and plentiful, but very basic. At Mr. B's Sunset Bungalows, tel: (856-30) 534 5109, a few dollars a night gets you a basic cabin with a double bed, mosquito net and porch hanging over the water. Many of the cabins on Don Det are owned by farmers capitalizing on the island's burgeoning tourist trade, so don't be surprised to find pigs and chickens wandering the grounds, or a farm dog curled up on your porch in the morning. (See TIME's Global Adviser...
...paddy fields. Stop off at the bakery on Don Det's northern tip, run by an Australian pastry chef, for a simple breakfast of cinnamon rolls or focaccia bread (and don't forget, at some point during your stay, to try the best pumpkin burger on an island full of imitators). You could then cross the bridge over to Don Khon to explore the remnants of an old French railway, walk one mile (1.5 km) to Somphamit Falls to see rapids crash through the jagged gorge, then hire a longtail boat to take you to see the endangered freshwater Irrawaddy...
Once back on Don Det, head over to Mr. Vong's, on the island's south, and dine on the local specialty of mok pa - minced fish, steamed in banana leaves with the addition of glutinous rice and coconut milk, giving it a very soft consistency. The island's limited electricity supply - lights go out by 11 p.m. at the latest - puts curbs on nightlife. But you could always take a few bottles of Beer Lao back to your cabin and enjoy them by candlelight while the waves roll...
...long ago, Ricardo Herrero was one of Miami's Cuban-American hard-liners, an ardent supporter of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as well as the ban on U.S. travel to the communist island. But a half-dozen trips to Cuba during this decade have changed his mind about the latter. "There are no better ambassadors of American culture and American democracy than Americans themselves," says Herrero, 31. Many fellow Cuban Americans who've traveled there, he adds, have come to the same conclusion: they "always come back saying it was a completely eye-opening experience" and have "changed...
...meantime, more Cuban Americans are pouring into Cuba after Obama's relaxation of the travel and remittance rules for those with family on the island. The number of those travelers is expected to hit 200,000 this year, says Armando Garcia, president of Mar Azul Charters in Miami. That would be double the annual flow since 2004, when then President George W. Bush put the restrictions in place. If the travel ban were lifted altogether, recent studies suggest some 3 million Americans would visit Cuba each year. It's uncertain whether they would be effective ambassadors. But after almost...