Pakse
Southern Laos’s Pakse Town, situated at the confluence of the Se (Xe) Don and Mekong Rivers, with an official population of some 100,000, is Laos’s third largest city after Vientiane and Savannakhet. It’s also the capital of Champassak Province, despite the eponymously named town of Champassak lying a mere 30 kilometres south on the Mekong. (What is today the small town, or overgrown village, of Champassak was formerly the seat of the autonomous Kingdom of Champassak until the French insisted upon its absorption into the Kingdom of Laos in 1945.) The city today is a laid back – albeit positively bustling by Laos standards – administrative and commercial centre while also seeing an increasingly significant number of foreign visitors.
Pakse itself doesn’t lay claim to many tourist hotspots so its popularity is more down to its strategic location and well developed tourist facilities. As a large town, Pakse offers a decent choice of hotels, guesthouses and restaurants, motorbike and bicycle rental shops and travel agents as well as, importantly, coming with an international airport. Furthermore, the Thai border at Chong Mek is situated a mere 50 kilometres away to the west, beyond which is Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani City, which also possesses an airport as well as train services to Bangkok.
Aforementioned Champassak Town is home to one of the country’s four UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Angkorian temple of Wat Phu which can be reached by a short drive a long a new highway or an hour or so’s boat ride down the Mekong. East of Pakse the Bolaven Plateau, rises abruptly from the Mekong Valley and with spectacular waterfalls, minority villages and coffee plantations is one of South Laos’s most popular destinations. More popular still, with foreign visitors, is the picturesque Four Thousand Islands region in the far south of the province, along the border with Cambodia, where the Mekong spreads to up to 11 kilometres in width to accommodate the labyrinthine inland archipelago of Si Phan Don, or the Four Thousand Islands.
We’ll begin with a brief rundown on the town itself before moving on to describe its various outlying attractions.
Thousand year old relief in the Provincial Museum. (Left to right; Brahma on Hamsas – sacred geese – Shiva and Uma on Nandi and Vishnu on Garuda.) Pakse Town
Although Pakse Town lacks the ancient temples of Luang Prabang, Vientiane’s museums and monuments and Savannakhet’s stock of French period architecture, it is an all round pleasant, laid back and friendly town with an attractive riverside setting and mountain back drops. The rectangular-shaped town centre and older sections are bordered to the south by the Mekong, and the west and north by the Se Don River. Eastwards the town stretches along Highway 13 with the steep escarpment of the Bolaven Plateau beyond. A single bridge carries Route 13 across the Se Don to the western suburbs and PKZ, Pakse International Airport. From here, domestic flights take you to Vientiane where you can connect to Luang Prabang or Phonsavan while international destinations include Siem Reap, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, (Saigon) and Bangkok.
There are a few old colonial period buildings scattered around, plus several Buddhist wats, although the town’s most impressive building is the Champasak Palace or Champa Palace Hotel. Originally built in the early 70s to serve as as the residence of Chao Boun Oum, last prince of Champassak, it was converted into a luxury hotel in the 1990s. There is also a small city museum, the Champassak Provincial Museum, which houses a few exceptional Angkor-period artefacts although good luck finding it. (Google Maps indicated location hasn’t been updated for yonks however, despite what locals may tell you, the museum was actually open the last time we visited. After some valiant efforts by our guide and driver, we eventually managed to find the museum at the end of a dirt track some 5 kilometers east of town on the south side of Highway 13. There are plans to find a more central home in the future, and although their collection is small, there are certain remarkable artefacts and a a few more additions and cobweb removal would make for a worthwhile little museum.
Dao Huang Market, Pakse Also east of Pakse centre is what is certainly one of the town’s most interesting sites, the sprawling Dao Huang Market where, along side the usual household goods, clothing and gold shops, villagers from the Bolaven Plateau descend to sell their more exotic wares. You could combine a visit to Dao Huang with the Provincial Museum and while the latter may be, for now, slightly underwhelming, the more visitors it sees then the greater the incentive for an upgrade and new premises. Back in town a small but lively night market sets up at dusk along the banks of the Mekong. Great spot for a sunset Beer Lao and plenty of decent food options as well. Otherwise, you’ll find numerous coffee shops and eateries dotted around town, offering Thai, Vietnamese, Western and even Indian dishes as well as local.
Note, our accommodation choice in town is the long-standing, Franco-Lao run Pakse Hotel which, while not as fancy as Champa Palace, has a low-key, friendly vibe with comfortable rooms, a great breakfast, spectacular rooftop bar and restaurant and a very convenient, central location.
Rooftop bar and restaurant at the Pakse Hotel The Bolaven Plateau
This roughly circular, upland area fills the gap between the Annamite Mountains to the east, bordering Vietnam, and the Mekong River to the west. To the east and south the Plateau extends into neighbouring Saravan and Attapeu Provinces although the central and western sections belong to Champassak Province. Cool, upland temperatures make the region the centre of Laos’s coffee growing industry while the Plateau’s steep edges feature a series of spectacular waterfalls with Tad Lo, Tad Fan and Tad Yuean being the most popular and readily accessible. Bolaven is also home to several Austronesian, Mon-Khmer ethnic minorities including Laven, (from whom the Plateau’s name is derived), Atak, Katu, Tarieng and Suay with certain of their villages being popular stops for visitors.
There are a few resorts scattered across the area although Bolaven is usually visited as a day tour from Pakse including stops at waterfalls, a coffee plantation and perhaps a village or local market visit.
Girl from the Tarieng minority, Bolaven Plateau Champassak
As mentioned, the small, riverside town of Champassak, situated some 30 kilometres south of Pakse, was formerly the provincial capital as well as the seat of the Champassak royal family. Today it’s a sleepy town with an attractive setting overlooking the Mekong and more than its fair share of French period villas and vestiges. Its proximity to World Heritage Wat Phu means that several of the villas have now been converted to boutique hotels and guesthouses. Despite its small size, the town houses a selection of restaurants and coffee shops as well as several bicycle hire shops, handicraft stores and traditional massage parlours.
We’ve covered Champassak Town in detail in earlier post so suffice to say it’s a very pleasant spot to while away a day or two exploring its old wats, colonial architecture and coffee shops as well, of course, as the spectacular Angkor period ruins at nearby Wat Phu.
Wat Phu Wat Phu
Champassak forms a long, thin ribbon along the west bank of the Mekong with the southern section of town lying within the ancient city area, known today as Muang Khao. Although little remains, this was once the site of the pre-Angkorian walled city of Shrestapura, an early capital of the little-known Chenla civilisation dating back to at least the 4th century CE. (1) Historians still debate which of its more powerful early neighbours Champa or Funan controlled the nascent kingdom but by the 6th century autonomy appears to have been attained. Newly found independence led to something of an expansionist fever and Khmer princes set out from here on expeditions into what is today northeastern Thailand, (Isan) and northern Cambodia. (Around 560 CE King Bhavavarman I, son of the ruler of Shrestapura, founded an early Khmer capital on the site of Sambor Prei Kuk in today’s Kampong Thom Province.) Champassak’s Muang Khao, or Shrestapura, therefore holds a strong claim to be the birthplace of both the pre-Angkorian Chenla culture and ultimately the Angkor civilisation.
A short distance west of the ancient city, on the lower slopes of the mountains overlooking the Mekong, was the region’s principal religious and ceremonial centre, now listed by UNESCO under the name Wat Phu. Although most of what visitors see today dates to the early 11th century and reign of the Angkorian king Suryavarman I, the earlier structures on the site would have been contemporary with ancient Shrestapura. The summit of the mountain to the rear of Wat Phu features a rock formation in the shape of a natural linga while the base of the mountain possesses a spring so, with holy water ‘on tap’, the site was a highly auspicious one. (2) (The small Wat Phu Museum in the car park is well worth a look for more info and artefacts.)
Additional Angkor-period temples in the area include Nang Sida, a recently restored sanctuary situated a short walk south of Wat Phu and the atmospheric jungle ruins of Huay Tomo, (sometimes called Wat Tomo), situated on the opposite, eastern, bank of the Mekong. These are both far less known than Wat Phu and consequently see few visitors, but are both well worth visits.
The late 9th/early 10th century Hindu temple of Huay Tomo, or (Wat Tomo). Four Thousand Islands
Along with Bolaven and Wat Phu, Champassak’s third main draw is the picturesque Four Thousand Islands region in the far south of the province. Although it’s a three hour or so drive down Highway 13 the vast majority of visitors will need to spend at least a night or two in Pakse beforehand. The name simply implies lots of islands – no-one has actually counted them all and many are seasonal – appearing and disappearing with rising or descending water levels. Some are large enough to house several villages, certain are just seasonal rocks emerging from the Mekong.
The picturesque archipelago culminates in a series of spectacular waterfalls including Liphi and Khone Phaphaeng, where the entire 11 kilometres of Mekong tumbles over a low sandstone escarpment, beyond which is the Cambodian Province of Steung Treng. (A pod of rare Irrawaddy dolphins used to inhabit the deep pools below the falls but alas they are no more although, happily, a second, larger pod downstream in Cambodia’s Kratie Province is apparently flourishing and growing in numbers.)
Only a few islands offer accommodation with Don Det being the backpacker island of choice and Don Khong and Don Khone offering more mid range resorts. (Yes, Don means island in Lao.)
Khone Phaphaeng Falls Off-the-beaten-track
The above then are Pakse and Champassak Province’s most popular destinations although for the more adventurous traveller there are more off-the-beaten-track possibilities. Pakse also provides access to lesser visited and further flung neighbouring provinces such as Attapeu and Saravan. Both offer jungle and mountain scenery, ethnic minorities and hiking and eco-tourism potential. At present, due to low numbers of visitors, tourism is little developed in these regions although this is something of a chicken and egg situation and both areas, as we said, have huge potential.
North of Pakse is Savannakhet, with the provincial capital of the same name lying a 4 hour or so bus ride up Highway 13. A new bridge across the Mekong connects the town to Thailand’s Mukdahan Province and while it certainly sees more visitors than Attapeu or Saravan, Savannakhet remains somewhat off-the-beaten-track compared to Pakse.
Some reach Pakse by way of the Thai border at Chong Mek, others fly directly from Vientiane but for anyone travelling overland from the capital Savannakhet makes for a fine place to break up the journey. Again, it’s not a city with a wealth of sites in its own right but it is another very pleasant, laid back town to explore with a scenic riverside location, plenty of excellent cafes and a good stock of French period architecture to discover. (A rather unusual attraction that receives excellent reviews is the Savannakhet Dinosaur Museum as the region’s limestone formations are particularly rich in fossils.)
Back in Champassak Province
A lesser known but recommended site is Kietngong (or Kiet Ngong) Village. Situated some 1 hour 30 minutes drive south of Pakse, the village is situated on the edge of Xe Pian National Park and offers eco-tourism possibilities such as hiking and birdwatching in the adjacent, Ramsar-listed Kietngong wetlands, trekking in the national park and visits to nearby Phu Asa, a sandstone outcrop housing some mysterious ancient ruins. The excellent Kingfisher Eco-lodge on the edge of the village makes for a delightful base to explore the area.
Along with all the natural sites and celebrated Wat Phu, Champassak Province also holds plenty of lesser known archaeological sites waiting to be discovered. By Angkorian times the Wat Phu complex and adjoining city was already ancient and had become a highly prestigious pilgrimage site, connected to the capital at Angkor Thom by a 360 kilometre long route. Sometimes called the ‘Royal Road’, we’d say route was more accurate as it appears the journey would have been completed partially by road and partially by canal. Whatever the means of transport, a series of sanctuaries was constructed at key points along the route, many of which still stand today, scattered across the forests of southern Champassak. Some are in ruins, certain hidden by jungle and others surprisingly intact but nearly all of them are remote and rarely visited.
Pakse forms a 2 night stop on our south Lao and Cambodia tours, Far North to Far South and Mekong Adventure as well as our Thailand and Laos tour, Emerald Triangle. All itineraries feature the main sites; Bolaven Plateau, Champassak and the Four Thousand Islands so include a coffee plantation tour, waterfall visits, a boat tour through the Islands, Liphi Falls, Huay Tomo and of course Wat Phu. Itineraries are comprehensive but leisurely paced so you’ll also have time to explore more of Champassak, Pakse and Don Khone at your leisure – or, just find a strategic spot and sit back and watch the Mekong flow past.
(1) Various historians have proffered various names for this early city with, in our opinion, Shrestapura being the best bet.
(2) A linga being the phallic symbol of the god Shiva.
