Instead of taking the typical taxi jeep to the waterfalls, we arranged to hire a father and son team to take us down the Mekong in one of those long boats you see in the photo above. Julie had her doubts initially because the father reeked of alchohol during our "reservation" the evening before.
They were up and eagerly waiting our arrival for the hour journey. To our surprise, the seven year old boy that spoke zero english, hops out of the boat and motions for us to follow him. He turns out to be our guide. He was the best guide we have ever had; he showed us all the secret ways to climb into the waterfall and the rope swings into the pools above. On the boat ride he was constantly polishing my sunglasses and wearing my hat, so I gave them to him as a gift--you should have seen the ear to ear grin on his face.
