Journey Into the Unspoiled Villages of Laos

I AM NOT PREPARED FOR THE WILDNESS.

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I had envisioned the Mekong River, Southeast Asia's great waterway that carves a path from the plateaus of Tibet to the deltas of Vietnam, as a gentle passage. A jade-hued bearer of small boats through jungles. But this was before I join Heritage Line in the border town of Huay Xai for a weeklong cruise on the Upper Mekong through the limestone mountains and tribal villages of Laos. And sit low in the prow of our beautiful ship, Anouvong, next to a makeshift shrine of flowers and incense, bracing myself as we fly through a boulder-strewn stretch of churning brown water, carving a path as deftly as a snowboarder. Laotians call their river Mae Nam Khong or the Mother of Water. On this first afternoon, she is a feisty mother indeed.