I returned to set up rafting trips with a small company on a great 3-4 class river trip taking two days and camping out in a purpose built fishing hut for the night.
I first kayaked this river in a perception 3-D and loved it, great forests great rapids with about 18 grade 3 and 4 rapids over the two days with each rapid followed by a long stretch of flat water where you can recover if things go wrong.
The trip starts about two and a half hours from the capital Vientiane which border Thailand, or 30 minutes from Vang Vieng, a backpackers retreat.
From the main road you cross through a restricted area into Xaysomboun which used to be a Secret CIA base in the Vietnam War.
Driving two hours up the mountain we cross to the put-in-point.
From here we say goodbye to roads and civilization, only coming across two or three fisherman over the next two days.
You can kayak or raft down the river to our hut where we spend the night in sleeping bags under mosquito nets, which is all stored at location which means we only take food and gear on the trip.
On the second day you continue down through several grade 4 rapids which can all be scouted and portaged if you don't think you're up to it with relative ease.
After the last grade 4 rapid we arrived at the Nam Ngum Lake formed by damming the river in the early 70s.
At the lake we will have a fishing boat waiting to take us back to the nearest road this trip takes about two hours.
Of course there is beer and food waiting on the boat.
This is the main commercial trip run by Paddle Adventures for kayakers or rafters.
There is also the Mekong fault line on the border between Cambodia and Laos which has given rise to a long line of numerous runable and unrunable waterfalls and rapids for the daring - this is some of the best water in the world.
These trips should be booked in advance as are not run on a daily basis.
Contact paddle_adventures@hotmail.
com or [http://www.
paddle-adventures.
com] for more courses and trips.