The Thakhek Motorcycle Loop - dramatic caves and karst scenery
Starting point: Thakhek
Stay at La Casa Hostel in Thakhek if you can get a place (it fills up), but there are several other good places nearby. There are no tourist sites in Thakhek, but the town centre has several good guesthouses and restaurants, and the riverfront is especially beautiful at sunset. It’s a nice place to spend a “down day” catching up on laundry, uploading photos etc.
If you want to see the loop but you don’t want to ride a motorbike, your options are either expensive (hire a private car and driver for 4 days to do the whole loop without rushing) or limited (there is a daily songtaew passenger truck departing Thakhek at 3 PM and arriving at Kong Lor Cave just after dark around 7 PM. If you want to stop off en route at The Rock zipline, then you have to wait another 24 hours for the next bus). Mad Monkey Motorbike Rental offers a guided tour by car, but I would get alternative price quotes from other drivers as well.
What you see on the Loop:
Several really beautiful caves, and towering karst scenery similar to Vang Vieng and Nong Khiaw further north. You need 4-5 days. Every night at 18:00 or 18:30, a Frenchman named Nico gives an excellent briefing about the Loop at La Casa hostel in Thakhek. This is very informative, and also a great place to meet other people to travel with. Nico will give you a small map that is difficult to read -- it is a photocopy of an excellent, much bigger map that you should receive for free when you rent your motorbike.
Rent your motorbike from Mixay Motorbike rental in Thakhek. If you reserve the morning before you want to start, you should have no problem. If you try to rent at the last minute, they might have no bikes. Mad Monkey Motorbikes is also professional and reliable, but usually at least twice the price of Mixay. DON'T rent from Wang Wang – they are the cheapest, but I met many people who rented with them and had breakdowns. One couple had to pay over a million kip to transport their motorbike back to Thakhek after a mechanical failure — not only did Wang Wang not reimburse them, Wang Wang charged them a steep fine for “damaging the bike” by being on it when the engine failed. If you haven’t yet found a group to travel with, go at 7 AM to pick up your bike, and wait around. Very soon many others will come, and someone will invite you to travel with them.
For general advice on motorcycling in Laos, see here
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Bolaven or Thakhek?
The scenery on the Thakhek loop is more dramatic than the scenery on Bolaven, but Thakhek’s scenery is also very similar to what you can see in Vang Vieng and Nong Khiaw.
The rolling agricultural landscapes of Bolaven are much more like Cambodia, not like the rest of Laos.
If at all possible, I would do both loops. But if you only have time for one, the choice depends in part on what else you will see during your trip.
Thakhek Loop, Day 1:
Start early (by 08:00 AM). The earlier you start, the more daylight you have. If you haven’t managed to find a group to motorbike with, pick your bike up at 7 AM and wait for other people to come get theirs — someone will welcome you into their group. Nico or Mixay can tell you which way to drive so you miss the two checkpoints in Thakhek where police always demand bribes.
You will head east on a highway known as "Cave Alley". I particularly enjoyed Xieng Lap and Namg Aen caves (apparently Pau Sueam cave is currently closed as of April 2024). In most caves you can walk or swim some distance inside, and that is worth doing. Plan to see two caves today, and the third one on your last day, on your way back into Thakhek. No later than 13:30 – even if you haven’t seen two caves yet -- you should stop visiting caves, leave Cave Alley and start driving north. Otherwise you risk running out of daylight.
In the afternoon, visit Song Sa waterfall and go swimming there. It's beautiful, and there is a tall rock where you can jump into deep water. We wasted time at our lunch stop and got here too late to swim, which was our mistake.
On the first night, stay at Sabaidee Guesthouse in the village of Nam Theun if you like things very social, or across the road at Phousy Guesthouse if you like private rooms and a quieter atmosphere. Both have a nice bonfire at night, and good food. Book rooms at least one day in advance. Arrive by 17:30 at the latest, since you don't want to drive in the dark.
Thakhek Loop, Day 2:
Start EARLY (absolute latest 08:00 AM, preferably 07:00 - it’s going to be a busy day)
Shortly after starting out, you will pass some Sandstone Bhuddas carved into the rock on the side of the road. It's worth a 20-minute stop. Look carefully -- there are more carvings there than you will notice at first.
You will pass through the largetown of Lak Sao. A large monastery on your right is worth a 30-minute stop. Shortly after that, you will reach what I think is the only traffic light in Lak Sao. There you must turn left. No sign tells you this, so watch on Google Maps carefully.
Your next stop is Dragon Cave. You’ll spend at least one hour here. When you leave the cave, you can walk to a nice viewpoint over the cave. If you are hungry, buy something here, because the restaurant at Cool Pool didn't look very good (if anyone ate here and liked it, please tell me!)
At Lak Sao monastery I met Uwe and Julia who cycled here from their home in Germany
The next stop is the Cool Pool, a beautiful pool of water where you can swim. I loved it. The sign for it on the highway is very small, so watch carefully (it’s on Google Maps, too). The water was not nearly as cold as Nico says it is.
Nico will tell you that after this, you should drive all the way to Kong Lor Cave. I disagree. Drive only as far as the town of Na Hin on the main highway, and get a guesthouse there (I stayed at Xaychalern Guesthouse and Restaurant, which was good – 100,000 kip for a private room, the restaurant is good, and it has a big sign on the highway that is easy to see). Quickly drop your luggage in your room, and drive another 10 km to The Rock Viewpoint and Zipline.
If you arrive at The Rock by 16:30, you can join the final group of the day doing the 90-minute zipline course at sunset, which is the most beautiful time of day. After the zipline, you must drive 10 km back to your guesthouse in the dark, and the road is very steep. So drive SLOWLY and be very careful. (Note: The Rock also has rooms available with amazing views, but they are expensive -- $45 per night).
If you arrive too late on Day 2 to do the Zipline, you can also do it the following morning if you get a very early start. Or maybe on Day 4 depending on which way you go back to Thakhek.
Thakhek Loop, Day 3:
Do The Rock Zipline if you didn't have time on Day 2. Then drive south to Kong Lor Village, by Kong Lor Cave. The scenery here is stunning.
The #1 thing to do here is to take a boat about 5 kilometres through the cave and out the other side. The cave is lit inside and you will see amazing rock formations. Wear shorts and sandals, as you will have to walk in shallow water a lot.
You will have two options for how you do this:
A. You can go through the cave without your motorbike. In that case, you will ride a boat through the cave, have a quick look around the other side of the cave (you can rent a bicycle for an easy 2-hour bike loop along the river if you want), and then you go back through the cave again in the other direction, where your motorbike is waiting for you. In this case you should stay in Kong Lor Village (on the north side of the cave) on the 3rd night. You will then have two options for driving back to Thakhek:
The fast way is highway 13, Laos’ busy, ugly, Mekong-side main national highway with a lot of trucks. This takes one day, so the total time on the loop will be 4 days and 3 nights.
The slow way is to go back the way you came. This allows you to see all the beautiful scenery again from the opposite direction, and catch any sights you missed due to lack of time. In this case, you stay again at Sabaidee or Phousy Guesthouse on Night 4, so your total time on the loop is 5 days and 4 nights. This is a good option if you have a lot of time, and you started too late in the mornings on days 1-2 and missed some of the key sites.
B. The other option on Day 3 is to go through the cave WITH your motorbike on the boat, and then drive back to Thakhek a completely different way. As of January 2023 the cost to transport a motorbike and its driver through the cave was 350,000 kip / $20 -- when you see how difficult it is for the boat crews, you’ll see why it costs so much. It is amazing to watch how they do it. After the cave, the first 55 km are on a dirt road -- 40 km is smooth and pretty easy, the last 15 km are pretty rough. If you do this, you really should go in a group for safety, but you will have no trouble finding people at Kong Lor Village who want to do this. Nico and all motorbike rental places will tell you this is a bad idea. There is a small risk that the motorbike will fall in the river inside the cave, and if that happens, it’s your financial responsibility. But my friends who did it (none of them with any motorbiking experience) loved it. Just go in a group. I think this is the best option if you are in a group, and if you are comfortable motorbiking on 15 km of really rough dirt road.
If you will take your bike through the cave, you want to be starting in to the cave no later than 12:30 or 13:00, so you have time to drive the 55-km dirt road before dark. This will take you back out onto the main highway near the towns of Nakai and Ban Lao, a short distance north of Cave Alley. You can easily find a guesthouse here. In this case, you will get back to Thakhek on Day 4. You will have plenty of time on Day 4 to stop at additional caves in Cave Alley that you didn't see on Day 1. There’s also a Rock Climbing Wall in Cave Alley if you like, and you’ll have time for that, too.
DON'T FORGET: When driving back into Thakhek, avoid the police checkpoints where they demand bribes!
