Cracking open bottles of ice-cold Beerlao, we gaze across the Mekong River, eyes peeled for elusive elephants amidst the oil-green cliffs and stormy jungle before the sky, heavy with rain, turns inky black.
I’m with a crew of backpackers, stopping overnight in the small town of Pakbeng on a two-day boat trip from Thailand into central Laos. While the elephants evade us, multiple sightings of water buffalo that we mistake for the world’s largest land mammal, prove thrilling enough after several drinks.
