The camp sits at the exact point where three countries meet: Laos across the river, Myanmar over the road, and the Mekong doing the border-drawing. Mornings started at nine degrees and full fog, with elephants already at breakfast.
The days were built around them – learning how the mahouts train and communicate, walking beside the elephants down to the river, then getting out of the way while they swam. In between: a pad thai cooking class, a long-tail boat to the tripoint itself, a local market, and a temple whose pagoda has stood for more than seven hundred years.
Nights ended under stars that made the camera work harder than the elephants did. An early entry in the log – and still one of the strangest, best addresses it contains.