Kim Brown Seely

Scott Sanderson is a veteran white-water kayaker who has logged four first descents on Mekong River tributaries and tackled the Class IV rapids that form as the river tumbles from the Tibetan plateau. But it wasn’t until he embarked on a laid-back, outfitted float through Laos that Sanderson beheld the Mekong’s most sacred rites.

 “We pulled into a village and the headman invited us to join a funeral ceremony,” says Sanderson, 47, a technical writer from Oaklyn, New Jersey. “It was a big party – like a wake. Everywhere we went on the river it seemed they were either giving birth or burying someone. You really got a feeling for the ebb and flow of life.”

We are scared to death of getting sucked under a big tow, but at the same time, it is exhilarating. Fighting our way across the dark river beneath a black sky feels like paddling through the night itself.