Stung Treng is a small provincial capital on the Mekong in northeastern Cambodia, close to the Lao border. Most travellers pass through on their way between Laos and the rest of Cambodia, but it is worth a stop.
The Mekong Blue silk weaving project — a social enterprise that trains vulnerable women in traditional weaving skills — produces beautiful silk scarves and textiles, and a visit to the workshop is one of the most worthwhile things to do in town. The town sits at the confluence of the Mekong and Sekong rivers, and the surrounding area has some of the best-preserved flooded forest and wetlands in the country.
The headline attraction is the Irrawaddy dolphin. Fewer than 100 of these critically endangered freshwater dolphins survive in the upper Mekong near the Lao border; boat trips from town or from Preah Rumkel village to the north give a genuine chance of seeing them. Continue further north and you reach the Sopheakmith waterfall, where the Mekong crashes over a limestone escarpment at the Cambodian-Lao border — a dramatic conclusion to a river day.