Mekong Islands — Si Phan Don Sunset
799.00 د.إ
The 4,000 Islands (Si Phan Don) region of the Mekong River in southern Laos at sunset — the river at its widest point (14km) splitting around hundreds of forested islands, the sunset light turning the water surface to hammered gold.
Description
Si Phan Don — Four Thousand Islands — is the section of the Mekong in southern Laos where the river spreads to 14 kilometres across its flood plain, fragmenting around a network of islands ranging from small sand bars to the 8-kilometre Don Khong. This aerial image was made from a helicopter at 400 metres altitude during the November low- water season when the river’s multiple channels are at their most visually complex — the varying depths of the Mekong channels ranging from opaque brown to translucent amber in the late afternoon light. The sunset light strikes the river surface at near-horizontal angles, turning the main channel surfaces to gold while the island vegetation remains in its warm green. The image communicates the extraordinary width of the Mekong at this point — a scale legible only from altitude.
