Boating in Laos

vacreative wrote:

I am moving to Vientiane in Aug 2015 and am keen to rent a boat on the Mekong. I have a boat licence from Singapore and am confident with small speed boats. Does anyone know where I can rent a boat from (self-drive)?

Hi and welcome to the forum

Boating on the Mekong is completely different to what you may be expecting.  There are no such thing as self drive speedboats here. No speedboats such as you know in fact. 

There are long tail boats that are operated by locals. These are essentially long narrow wooden hulls with a small engine to which is attached a long drive shaft and propeller. This is on a swivel at the rear of the boat and the operator steers the boat using this.  There are boat trips up the Mekong which you can overnight on.