Life By Water - Laos 2008

Two first D’s in one day, Sekong

We have just arrived back into Pakse to say goodbye to Craig and to head to Dong Kong after arguably the most fruitful trip of the expedition.

Riding a Tuk Tuk through a remote school near Sekong

We took a four-hour journey from Pakse to a small and remote town of Se Kong, This area was heavily effected by the bombings from the Vietnam war and there is no real “old buildings” for that reason. Signs in building of cartoon characters playing out situations of what to do when you find a bomb or mine were not uncommon.

Craig finding between waterfalls, food and sleep for a quick hit

In Pakse we have contacts and found a good group of people that we can easily communicate with. In Se Kong this was not the case, we would take turns in passing our phrase book around and doing our best to communicate that we need a vehicle that can carry 3 kayaks and we want to pay some one to take us to water falls or “nam tok taat”. This proved difficult to say the least but I think we did well.

Roadside common view

The first two drops we found were very high volume and were formed from igneous rock shelfs stepping there way down the Nam Se Noi. The first was possibly there scariest looking death hole I have ever seen. It was river wide – over 100m, and the boil line was over 10m behind the drop. We obviously did run this drop.

Death Hole

The second of the two was the was huge horizon line with one line that went about 40m in to the current, a very scary ferry and you sailed off the top hoping that you got your marker right. All runs went well.
I brought a pair of IR dry pants out with me to Laos, I didn’t really think I would need them but they have proved invaluable for a couple of reasons
First, Allot of things wants to bite you while hiking through the jungle, plants sting, snakes are everywhere, spiders bugs. Everything wants to take a piece of you.
The second reason came at the waterfalls on the Nam Se Noi, at the bottom of the drops there was puffer fish know as “pa pao”. According to the locals the pa pao can home in and sink their razor sharp teeth into the human penis with ridicules accuracy.
Swimming was not an option but I felt a little safer with my splash pants on.

Craig on a hectic horizon line

After these drops we were ready to call it a day and were only 10 minutes from our hotel, randomly looking down stream of a side creek that feed into the massive Se Kong we a large horizon line. After a quick scout we soon realised that we had just found the most perfect looking 40ft waterfall I have ever seen.

We all ran this drop a number of times, rock jumped it and even abseiled beside the falls for an amazing camera angle. Enjoy the photos!