Backpacking Thakhek
Nobody comes to Thakhek for Thakhek. It is a quiet town on the Mekong halfway between Vientiane and Pakse, and what you come for is the road that leaves it: the Thakhek Loop, 450 kilometres of scooter riding through limestone country over three or four days.
The loop is the southern answer to Ha Giang in Vietnam, and it is completely different in character. No group, no guide, no easy rider. You rent a semi-automatic, leave your big bag at the shop, and go, with a hand-drawn map and about eight other travellers doing the same route at the same pace.
What is out there: karst towers, a reservoir full of dead trees standing in the water, swimming holes, villages with one guesthouse, and Kong Lor, a cave you go through on a longtail boat for seven and a half kilometres in total darkness.
Why Thakhek is popular with backpackers
- The Thakhek Loop, one of the great motorbike roads in Asia
- Kong Lor: seven and a half kilometres through a mountain by boat
- You ride it yourself, at your own pace, with no tour attached
- The whole loop for around €17 a day, petrol and beds included
- A drowned forest at Nakai that looks like nothing else
- You keep running into the same people every evening for four days
Best time to visit Thakhek
Thakhek is the start of the loop, and the weather here decides one thing above all: whether the road is dry.
The Kong Lor cave is a boat ride of seven and a half kilometres straight through a mountain. When the water is high in the rainy season that trip can be suspended entirely, which takes the best day out of the loop.
Backpacker budget: around €17 a day
- €5hostel bed
- €2local meal
- €1beer
- €8scooter per day
Guide prices from our own days in Thakhek. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Thakhek
You sleep in town the night before and the night after, and in whatever guesthouse the day ends at in between. All three of these will rent you the bike and store your bag.
Naga Hostel & Cafe
The loop headquarters. They rent the bikes, they draw you the map, they store your big backpack for free, and the common room is where you find the people you will be riding with. A 9.5, and the obvious first booking.
Thakhek Travel Lodge
The original, and for years the only place that did this. Sociable, a bit tired now, and the noticeboard by the bar is still full of other travellers’ notes about road conditions on each section of the loop.
Song Lao Guesthouse
Simple, relaxed and close to the restaurants and the rental shops. A low score for the rooms, eight hundred and fifty reviews, and the cheapest bed in town.
Best things to do in Thakhek
Riding the Thakhek Loop
The reason you are here. Roughly 450 kilometres in a rough circle out of town and back, over three or four days, on a semi-automatic. Day one is limestone and lagoons, day two is the Nakai reservoir and the drowned forest, day three is Kong Lor, and day four is a long flat run home.
You do not need a guide and there is not really one available. What you need is a bike you have checked, cash, and a sense of how far you can ride in a day.
The Kong Lor cave
The single best thing in southern Laos. A longtail boat takes you seven and a half kilometres through a mountain, in the dark, on an underground river, with a head torch and a boatman who knows every rock. Ceilings a hundred metres up, then sections where you get out and push.
You come out the other side into a valley that until recently could only be reached this way.
The drowned forest at Nakai
A reservoir where a valley was flooded and the trees were never cleared, so thousands of dead trunks stand up out of flat grey water for kilometres. It is on the second day of the loop and it is the strangest thing on the route.
The caves and lagoons outside town
You do not need the whole loop to get the flavour. Within twenty kilometres of Thakhek there is the Buddha Cave, full of centuries-old bronze statues found by a villager looking for bats, plus Tham Nang Aen and the Tha Falang lagoon, which is a green pool between cliffs that you can swim in.
Sunset over the Mekong
Thakhek’s riverfront is a French colonial square with a fountain, a handful of restaurants and Thailand on the far bank. It is a nice, low-key evening, and it is what you do the night before you set off and the night you get back.
Best area for backpackers
The town centre
Thakhek is small and everything is within a few streets of the old French square by the river: the hostels, the rental shops, the restaurants and the bus station connection.
Stay where you are renting the bike. The shop that holds your bag and the bed you sleep in the night before are best at the same address, because you are leaving at eight in the morning.
Good to know about this area
- Hostels and scooter rental in the same few streets
- Rental shops store your big backpack for free while you ride
- Restaurants and a night market around the old square
- The riverfront looks straight at Thailand
- Take cash: on the loop there are almost no ATMs
- The bus station is a few kilometres out, tuk-tuk in
How to plan your days in Thakhek
The town is a day. The loop is three or four. Pick how long you have.
Thakhek and the caves nearby. Sort your scooter, leave your big bag at the rental shop, and ride out to the Buddha Cave and the lagoons just outside town.
Tonight: eat on the Mekong, with Thailand on the other side.
The loop, days one and two. Through a landscape of limestone towers, past the Tha Falang lagoon and up onto the Nakai plateau with its drowned forest, where dead trunks stand up out of the water.
Tonight: a guesthouse at the side of the road, basic and warm.
The loop, day one. Out of town through a landscape of limestone towers and past the Tha Falang lagoon. Take it slowly, this is the day you get to know the bike.
Tonight: a guesthouse at the side of the road, basic and warm.
The loop, day two. Up onto the Nakai plateau and the reservoir with its drowned forest, where dead trunks stand up out of the water. Nobody is rushing you today, which is exactly what the extra day is for.
Tonight: another guesthouse along the road.
The Kong Lor cave. Seven and a half kilometres on a longtail straight through a mountain in complete darkness. You come out into a valley that used to be reachable no other way.
Tonight: in Kong Lor village, where the homestays are.
Back to Thakhek. The last day runs home along the east side of the loop, past rice fields and small villages. About 150 kilometres, so start early.
Tonight: night bus to Vientiane, Pakse or the Vietnamese border.
Food and drink in Thakhek
Thakhek and the villages on the loop do simple food: fried rice, noodle soup, laap and sticky rice. Out on the road you eat whatever that day’s guesthouse is cooking, and there is no menu.
Carry water and snacks. Between some villages there is two hours of riding without a single stall, and if you break down there is nothing out there at all.
Fill up whenever you pass a petrol station on the loop, not when the gauge says you need to. The gap between two of them can be eighty kilometres.
Getting there and onward
Thakhek sits halfway between Vientiane and Pakse on the Mekong, opposite Thailand, which makes it an obvious stop on the way south.
Getting there. Six hours by bus from Vientiane, and about the same from Pakse. From Thailand you come in via Nakhon Phanom and the third Friendship Bridge.
The loop. About 450 kilometres over three or four days. The rental shops in town store your big bag free while you are out on it.
Onward. For Vietnam, buses run via the Cha Lo border towards Phong Nha. It is a long day and it is the shortest route into central Vietnam.
- ScooterFrom about €8 a day, semi-automatic recommended
- BusVientiane 6 hrs · Pakse 6 hrs
- Kong Lor cave7.5 km by longtail through the mountain
- BorderNakhon Phanom in Thailand, over the bridge
- To VietnamVia Cha Lo towards Phong Nha, a long day
Staying safe on the Thakhek Loop
This is three or four days on a motorbike, alone, on roads with no phone signal and no ambulance. It is entirely doable and it needs thinking about before you set off, not on day two.
- Check your travel insurance covers riding in Laos, and on which licence category
- Carry a 1949-convention international driving permit. That is the one Laos recognises
- Go over the bike before you leave: brakes, tyres, lights, horn, and photograph any existing damage
- Fill up at every petrol station you pass, and carry cash for beds and fuel
- Ride after dark. There is no lighting, there are animals, and there are trucks
- Attempt the whole loop in two days. Three is tight and four is right
- Ride in the rainy season without checking which sections are passable
- Wander off the road into the fields. This province still has unexploded ordnance in it
Wear a helmet, wear long sleeves, and take it slowly on the gravel sections. Almost everybody who gets hurt on this loop was going too fast on a surface that changed without warning.
Rebels on the Road tip
Do the loop anticlockwise, and do it in four days rather than three. Anticlockwise puts the worst road surface on day one while you are fresh and the bike is untouched, and it means you reach Kong Lor in the morning rather than at the end of a long day, when the cave boats are running and the light coming out of the far end is at its best. The fourth day costs you eight euros and removes every bit of clock-watching from the trip.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the Thakhek Loop take?
Three days if you push and four if you want to enjoy it. Four gives you time at Kong Lor, at the lagoons and at the reservoir, and it turns the last day from a slog into a ride.
Do I need experience to ride the Thakhek Loop?
Some, yes. It is 450 kilometres over three or four days on mixed surfaces with no guide and no support. It is a far gentler road than Ha Giang in Vietnam, but you are on your own out there, so this is not the place for your first ever time on a bike.
What licence do I need?
Your own motorcycle licence plus a 1949-convention international driving permit, which is the one Laos recognises. Without the right category you are also not insured, and that matters more than the fine.
Is the Kong Lor cave worth it?
It is the best single thing in southern Laos: an hour on a boat inside a mountain, on an underground river, in the dark. Check before you ride out, because high water in the rainy season can close it.
Where do I leave my big backpack?
At the rental shop or your hostel in Thakhek. They all store it for free while you are on the loop, and you ride out with a day bag.
Thakhek Loop or the Bolaven Loop?
Thakhek is longer, wilder and built around caves and karst. The Bolaven Loop out of Pakse is shorter, greener and built around waterfalls and coffee farms. Thakhek if you want the ride; Bolaven if you want the stops.
When is the best time to ride it?
November to March. Dry roads, clear air and every section open. In the rainy season parts of the loop become genuinely impassable and the cave can close.
