This trip offers students an adventure few have ever experienced – a cycling, kayaking and boating expedition down the legendary Mekong River from southern Laos to central Cambodia. This is the wildest and most beautiful part of the entire river. Up to 14 km wide in places, and laced with 4,000 islands and stunning waterfalls, the stretch of the Mekong along the Laos/Cambodian border has been declared a Ramsar Site - a wetland of global significance. Incredibly rich in bird life, it is also the last sanctuary for the critically endangered Mekong River dolphins.

There are only a few isolated populations of fresh water dolphins remaining on the Mekong in Laos and Cambodia. Students will spend time at several of these dolphin pools, mapping their movements to determine impacts from motorboats on feeding behavior and photo documenting surfacing dolphins to distinguish individuals in an on-going attempt to determine population numbers.

There is, of course, much more to this region than wildlife and stunning scenery; it is an ancient land stepped in legend where 2,000-year old temples depict stories sculpted in sandstone and animistic traditions blur the boundaries between myth and reality. Nothing figures more prominently here than the legendary Naga – a river “dragon” inspired by a real-life Mekong creature.