By Mark “Mega” Jones, Megaworld Asia
In the early part of December 2019 I was fortunate enough to be part of an epic kayaking adventure down the Xebangfai River, in an amazing wilderness area in Khammouane Province, Central Laos. The trip covered 60 km of the river (skirting the Hin Nam No National Park) and culminated in exiting through the immense Xebangfai Cave, currently considered to be the world’s largest river cave.
The 5 day trip was organized by Mr. Terry Bolger (currently working as a caving consultant for the Lao Government) and employed the guiding services of Green Discovery Laos (GDL), who also provided the kayaks, camping equipment, food, and 2 local guides. We assembled in Thakhek, Laos and departed for the kayaking start point (Laboy Crossing) on the morning of December 8th 2019. There were 7 team members for the trip, including the local guides
The plan for the first day was to drive to Laboy Crossing and hopefully get a couple of hours of kayaking in before making camp along the riverside for our first night. Unfortunately the condition of the road between Bualapha and Laboy Crossing was much worse than anticipated. The 80 km of dirt road took just on 3 hours to negotiate before arriving at the crossing. With it being late in the day we decided to make camp at the crossing, and start early the following day.
After setting up camp we still had some daylight in our favor so Terry suggested taking a walk up to Laboy Village to check out the bomb casings; remnants of the American Military campaign in the 1970’s (the area was on what was known as the HO CHI MINH TRAIL). The distance from the crossing to the village was approx. 2 km and the scenery on the way was quite spectacular. This is a very remote area of Laos, untouched by development of any kind and there is also no sign of any religious influences i.e., there were no Buddhist Temples in the area and according to Terry, the locals still used the traditional animistic belief system.
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