Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Many travellers see very little of south central Laos, spending just a night or two in
the principal towns of Thakhek or Savannakhet before pressing on to the far south or
crossing the border into Vietnam. However, if you're willing to take time out from the
more popular north and south ofthe country you'll find that there is much more tothe
region than the main Mekong towns, which are slowly awakening from their post-colo-
nial slumber.Inthispartofthecountry,explorers arerewarded handsomely: bywarm
smiles and friendly shouts of “sabaidee”, by the otherworldly beauty of the vast caves
that edge the Khammouane Limestone NBCA near Thakhek, and by glimpses of the
massive Nakai-Nam Theun NBCA, the largest of all Laos's conservation areas.
The three narrow provinces that dominate this part of Laos, namely
Bolikhamxai
,
Kham-
mouane
and
Savannakhet
, are squeezed between mainland Southeast Asia's two most for-
midable geographical barriers: the Mekong river and the Annamite Mountains. The
Mekong
has long served as a lifeline for the inhabitants of this stretch of the interior, providing food
and a thoroughfare for trade and transport. In the late nineteenth century, European coloni-
alism turned the life-giving “Mother of Waters” into a political boundary, and the Lao on
its west bank were incorporated into Siam. During the 1970s and 1980s, the river became
a further political and economic divide, when short-lived but draconian post-revolutionary
policies forced large numbers of the inhabitants of the towns along this stretch of the Mekong,
primarily ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese, to flee across the river into Thailand.
East of the river, the elevation gradually increases, culminating in the rugged
Annamite
Mountains
, which, throughout much of recorded history, have divided Indochina culturally
into two camps, Indian influence prevailing west of the chain and that of China dominating
the east. Until very recently these mountains made up one of the region's least inhabited areas
and were teeming with wildlife, including some of Asia's rarest and most endangered spe-
cies, such as the tiger, Javan rhinoceros and Indian elephant. In recent years, however, this
area has been the target of heavy logging, and some observers claim that the damage done to
the forest since the start of the new millennium is irreversible.
As might be expected, the three principal settlements and provincial capitals of south central
Laos - Paksan, Thakhek and Savannakhet - are all on the Mekong.
Paksan
, the smallest of
these, lies at the mouth of the Xan river, which flows down from the 2620-metre Phou Xaxum
on the Xieng Khuang Plateau. Thanks to the opening of a Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge just
north of town, the old casino town of
Thakhek
is seeing an increase in foreign visitors. East
of Thakhek is a dramatic landscape of imposing and impossibly vertical mountains of the
kind often depicted in old Chinese scroll paintings, which forms the southern boundary of
the
KhammouaneLimestoneNBCA
. Easily visited on a day-trip from Thakhek, these awe-
some limestone formations are riddled with labyrinthine tunnels and caverns.
Savannakhet
has been described as southern Laos's equivalent of Luang Prabang, its inhabitants living
comfortably among architectural heirlooms handed down by the French.
