Pakse in southern Laos is located at the headwater where the Xedone and Mekong Rivers merge. The town was founded by the French in 1905 and is Champasak Province’s major city.
A mere trickle of melt water emerging from the parched landscape of the Tibetan plateau, the meagre source of the Mekong river belies the deluge that will eventually pour from its mouth into the South China Sea.