Here the Mekong is lazy, awash with islands and has a wonderful peace and idyllic charm of its own. The Mekong's width is almost nine miles here during the monsoon, its greatest breadth in its entire three thousand mile journey. It is known as Si Phan Don or the land of 'four thousand islands' for the countless islands and sandbars that lie submerged during the monsoon period, only to appear as the water subsides.

At Khong Pha Pheng, the tranquil waters of the Mekong lose all sense of calm and cascade in a roaring hurry of surging, seething white on to their distant destination of the delta in Vietnam.