The 4000 Islands by Kayak

BY KAYAK ISLANDS

Get up close and personal with the mighty Mekong. TEXT BY CLAIRE BOOBBYER PHOTOGRAPHS BY SWISSCONTACT / BART VERWEIJ / PHOONSAB THEVONGSA

The 4000 Islands in southern Laos, low lying sandy clumps in the Mekong River, are famous for their easy-going pace, banana pancakes, afternoons in hammocks, dolphin-spotting opportunities, wide-sky sunsets, and raucous parties.

I’ve cycled over traces of the old French railway tracks through mango and teak forests, walked the slow loop of sandy trails wriggling through the islands’ small communities, and fl itted about from one vestige of French power to another, to bar, to café, and guesthouse many times. I’d never considered taking to the water, though, until now.

The Mekong River can look formidable at times – a fast-fl owing wide milk chocolate brown river cut with rocky islands and drowned trees. But a kayaking trip sounded exciting, and with a chance to spot the area’s rare Irrawaddy dolphins, too, I eagerly signed up.

Green Paradise’s kayaking expedition wisely includes free breakfast for its mainly land-lubber clientele. After fuelling up with baguette, egg, and thick Lao coffee at a restaurant on Don Det island, we grabbed life jackets and tucked into our kayaks. Hoping to halve the work of paddling, I jumped into a kayak with our guide, Mr. Sam.

Patient Mr. Sam spent a good deal of time barking ‘right, right’ as our crew of 21 – Brits, Australians, Dutch, French, and Hungarians – took to the water like ducks, I mean clumsy humans, grappling with kayak balance, water fl ow, and huge thickets of vegetation that reared up unexpectedly.

Our fi rst destination was downstream at Don Khone Island’s Pa Soi rapids. Early on we temporarily lost part of the group, one kayak team fell into the river, and one kayak got sucked into a cluster of bushes and became entangled. The heat was unforgiving but we giggled at these mishaps and continued on our journey navigating clumps of trees and mini islands. We parked up just before Pa Soi rapids and walked over a bridge to look at the frothing water below. The kayaks had been moved beyond Pa Soi Falls to a safe spot; we boarded them again for a journey to the bottom of Khone Island. At Hang Khone village, at the tip of Khone Island, we packed into a longtail boat to head upstream in search of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. We clambered up the sandy hill of a large island and looked across the stream of the fast-fl owing river. The dolphins, their wet skin glistening in the sun, surfaced and ducked as they searched for fi sh in the food-rich pools. It was thrilling to catch a glimpse of these rare mammals. The WWF reports there’s been a slight increase in their numbers in the Mekong in Cambodia from 80 in 2015 to 92 in 2017 but not in Laos. In the Lao Mekong, there are just three. While munching on a lunch of baguette, chicken, and fried rice we saw all three of them about 30 to 40 times – all fi ns, snouts, sleek metal-grey bodies gleaming in the strong sun.

Back at Khone Island we fetched our kayaks and headed out downriver to a pickup point on the mainland at Ban Veunkham. The sun was crippling but, like a miracle, there on the riverbank at Ban Veunkham

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GETTING THERE Lao Airlines has daily fl ights to Pakse from Vientiane, Luang Prabang, and Bangkok. The 4000 Islands are 3 hours south of Pakse by road.

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1. Palm trees line the island shores 2. Paddlers head out in search of freshwater dolphins 3. The 4000 Islands from above

was a stall with a packed icebox. We cleaned it out of Beerlao and Coke before boarding a truck to visit the mother of all waterfalls – the kilometers-wide Khone Phapheng Falls.

At fi rst sight, you can see why it defeated French colonial explorers. It’s a seething, frothing mass of thundering water swirling over sturdy boulders as it fi ghts to enter Cambodia and the lower Mekong. The French found themselves in these parts when they were shoring up claims to the river and their Indochina colonies. The French needed to move gunboats into position to defend new territorial claims but navigating past the raging Khone Phapheng Falls – with its 21-meter drop – had defeated French minds. They built a railway across Khone Island, directly west of the Phapheng Falls, so two gunboats could be hauled across it; the railway infrastructure (some of which we saw at Hang Khone village) was later adapted for commercial traffi c with steamboats on the river thrown into the mix. When roads were built in the 1930s the railway fell into disuse. Today, rusty locomotives stand abandoned at the edge of paddy fi elds, the last tangible remnants of island railway traffi c.

After ice cream – more energy – we boarded our kayaks at Nakasang village to paddle downstream and back to Don Det Island. As the rose-pink sun began to set, the light was beautiful, the water appeared like silk, clumps of greenery took on a velvet glow, and fi shermen were pootling about in pirogues.

Of course, after so much exercise, we replenished our muscles with more sundowner Beerlao as soon as we clambered back on to dry land!

四千美岛皮划艇之旅 与壮美的湄公河亲密接触 翻译 : 尹航 图片： 绿色天堂旅行社 / PHOONSAB THEVONGSA

位于老挝南部的四千美岛是一片散落在湄公河上12公里大大小小的岛屿。 四千美岛以其缓慢的生活节奏， 美味的食物，慵懒的午后吊床，有幸偶遇河 豚和美丽的日落而闻名。 我骑着自行车经过法国人修建的铁路，穿过貌美的芒果林和柚木林，行驶在 多条环线农舍的沙路小径，来到酒吧，咖啡馆最后到达旅馆。这时我才刚刚 想起来喝口水。 因为湄公河有时候看起来很具有挑战性⸺ 一条快速流动的宽阔河面，被多 岩石的岛屿和淹没的树木割断。皮划艇之旅听起来很刺激，而且有机会看到 该地区稀有的伊洛瓦底河豚，所以，我报了名。 绿色天堂的皮划艇探险之旅为参加者提供免费早餐。 在Don Det岛上的一 家餐馆享用了法棍面包，鸡蛋和浓浓的老挝咖啡后，我们拿起救生衣登上皮 划艇。我和向导同乘一条皮划艇。 我们的第一个目的地是Don Khone岛Pa Soi急流段的下游。那天天气很热， 我们在树木群和小岛间穿梭航行。我们将车和皮划艇停靠在Pa Soi急流段的 上方，然后走过一座桥去观察下面汹涌的河水。 皮划艇被移至PaSoi急流以下安全地点之后我们才再次登上它，前往Khone 岛下游。 在Khone岛南端的Hang Khone村， 我们换乘着一条长尾船，寻找 濒临灭绝的伊洛瓦底河豚。我们爬到一座大沙丘， 注视着快速流动的河水。 河豚，浮出水面了！河豚在寻找食物，它们银色的皮肤在阳光下闪闪发光。瞥 见这些稀有哺乳动物，真是令人兴奋。 回到Khone岛，我们再次登上皮划艇，直达下游的Veunkham村，在那里我 们乘坐一辆卡车，参观老挝最大的瀑布-宽阔的Khone Phapheng瀑布。 在这里第一眼您就会明白它为什么征服了法国殖民时期的探险者。当年轰 轰隆隆的河水敲打着局势，翻滚着涌入位于下游柬埔寨境内的湄公河。当法 国人在印度支那扩展殖民地时，需要在这里将炮艇放到适当位置，越过湄 公河以夺取更多领土，但是，当他们见到汹涌的、且落差高达21米的Khone Phapheng瀑布时，法国人放弃了。法国人在这里还修建了一条铁路，横穿 Khone Phapheng瀑布以西的Khone岛，用来将两艘炮艇运送到对岸。该段 铁路（其中一段我们在Hang Khone村看到了）后来经过改修，被当地人同 蒸汽船一起用作商业运输。1930年代修建公路后，铁路就不再使用了。如今， 废弃生锈的机车，变成岛上铁路运输的最后见证。 我们回到Don Det岛。玫瑰粉红色的太阳开始落山，光线很美，渔民穿梭在像 丝绸一样的河面上。 到达： 老挝航空每日有从万象，琅勃拉邦和曼谷到巴色的航班。四千美岛距离巴色以南三 小时车程。 greenparadisetravel.com