Through the mountain at Konglor

At a glance

Length

4 days, 3 nights

Group size

2 to 8

Starts

Thakhek, or Vientiane

Ends

Thakhek, or Vientiane

Effort

Moderate - 450 km of road, some of it rough

From

USD 460 per person

The route

The Khammouane karst is a belt of limestone towers running east from the Mekong towards the Vietnamese border, riddled with caves and cut through by rivers that disappear underground. The loop is a 450 km circuit of it that has been driven by motorbike travellers for twenty years and by almost nobody else.

Its centrepiece is Konglor, a cave 7.5 km long with a navigable river running the whole way through the mountain. You sit in a long-tail boat in complete darkness with a head torch, for around fifty minutes, and come out into daylight and jungle on the far side. There is nothing comparable in the region.

We run this with a driver and a proper vehicle rather than motorbikes, which is the main difference between our version and the backpacker version. If you want to ride it yourself we will support the trip with a vehicle carrying the luggage and a mechanic phone number, which is a service we sell but do not recommend to anyone who has not ridden a loaded bike on Lao roads before.

Day by day

Day 1

To Thakhek and the caves outside town

If you are starting from Vientiane it is 340 km south on Route 13, about five hours, and we break it at Paksan. Arriving in the early afternoon leaves time for the string of caves along Route 12 just east of Thakhek: Tham Nang Aen with its lit chambers, and the Buddha cave discovered by a villager hunting bats in 2004, which holds 229 bronze images that had been hidden there for centuries.

Thakhek itself is a small, faded French-era Mekong town facing Thailand across the water, with a square, a few good noodle shops and almost no visitors. Dinner is on the riverfront.

StaySmall hotel in ThakhekMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel5 hours from Vientiane, or 1 hour of local roads if starting in ThakhekOn foot1 km inside the caves, some steps

Day 2

The loop north, and the drowned forest

The drowned forest at sunset, when the water goes completely still

The road climbs onto the plateau and the limestone starts in earnest. We stop at the Tha Falang pool, at a viewpoint over the Phou Hin Poun protected area, and then reach the reservoir behind the Nam Theun 2 dam - a flooded plateau with the trunks of the drowned forest still standing out of mirror-flat water for kilometres. It is eerie, it is beautiful, and it displaced more than six thousand people, which your guide will tell you about rather than skip.

We overnight at Thalang or Nakai on the water. Accommodation here is simple - clean rooms, hot water, and not much else - and this is the night that decides whether this trip is for you.

StaySimple guesthouse at Thalang, on the reservoirMealsBreakfast, lunch, dinnerTravel4 hours, last 40 km roughOn foot2 km at the viewpoints and the pool

Day 3

Konglor cave

The point about 3 km in where the boatman cuts the engine and you hear the river and nothing else

A morning drive down into the Hin Boun valley, which narrows until the cliffs on either side are 300 metres high and the road ends at a village at the cave mouth. The boat takes three passengers and a boatman with a head torch, and goes into the mountain.

The passage varies from a cathedral 100 metres high to a squeeze where you get out and walk on the gravel while the boatman drags the hull. Fifty minutes later you emerge on the far side, stop for twenty minutes among the trees, and come back through. In the afternoon we walk in the village and along the river, and you sleep within earshot of the cave.

StayGuesthouse at Ban Kong Lor, simple and cleanMealsBreakfast, lunch, dinnerTravel2 hoursOn foot2 km in the village, plus wading inside the cave

Day 4

Route 8 and back to the Mekong

The eastern arm of the loop runs down Route 8 through Lak Sao, a border town with a market that trades with Vietnam, and then descends through a gorge that is the best driving of the four days. We stop at the Nam Sanam falls, and reach Thakhek in the mid-afternoon.

From there we either finish, drive you the five hours back to Vientiane, or put you on the road south towards Pakse, which is another four hours and joins the southern itinerary neatly.

StayNot includedMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel5 to 6 hoursOn foot1 km at the falls

Prices

There is no comfortable column on this trip because there is no comfortable accommodation on this route. Two of the three nights are in simple guesthouses, and no amount of money changes that. It is the honest reason this loop stays quiet.

What is included

Pictures

Who this trip does not suit

• Anyone who needs a good hotel every night. Two of the three nights are simple guesthouses and the best room available is still a simple guesthouse room.
• Travellers who are uncomfortable in confined dark spaces. Fifty minutes inside a mountain on a boat is not something you can leave halfway through.
• People who dislike long days in a vehicle on imperfect road. Two of the four days are five hours or more, and sections of the northern arm are rough.
• Visitors in the wet season, July to September, when the Hin Boun rises and the cave boats stop running for days at a time. We will not sell this trip in those months without saying so first.
• Anyone travelling with small children. The distances and the cave both argue against it.