The south, slowly

At a glance

Length

6 days, 5 nights

Group size

2 to 8

Starts

Pakse

Ends

Pakse or Nakasang for Cambodia

Effort

Easy - nothing above 3 km on foot

From

USD 620 per person

The route

The south is a different country from the north. There are no mountains to speak of below the Bolaven escarpment, the Mekong is four times wider, the food has more chilli and more fish in it, and the pace of everything drops by about a third.

Three things anchor the trip. The Bolaven Plateau is a volcanic highland at 1,000 to 1,350 metres where most of Lao coffee grows, and where the temperature is 8 to 10 degrees below the valley. Wat Phou is a Khmer temple complex older than Angkor Wat, on a hillside aligned to a spring, listed by UNESCO in 2001. Si Phan Don, the Four Thousand Islands, is where the Mekong widens to 14 km and breaks around hundreds of sandbars before dropping over the largest waterfall in Southeast Asia by volume.

Nothing on this trip is far from anything else. The longest drive is under three hours, which is why six days here feel longer than six days in the north.

Day by day

Day 1

Pakse and the Mekong confluence

Arrive by air from Vientiane, or by road from Thakhek or the Thai border at Chong Mek. Pakse is a working town rather than a destination - a grid on the Mekong at the mouth of the Se Don, with the best market in the south and a Chinese-Lao commercial quarter worth an hour.

Late afternoon we drive up to Wat Phou Salao, the golden Buddha on the hill across the river, for the view over the confluence, and eat at a riverside place that has no English menu.

StayHotel in PakseMealsNothing on arrival dayTravel30 minutes from the airportOn foot2 km around town and the market

Day 2

The Bolaven Plateau

Coffee cupping at the farm, which ruins airport coffee permanently

The road climbs 1,000 metres in about 50 km and the air changes completely. We visit a working coffee farm at Paksong - arabica above 1,200 m, robusta below - during the harvest if you come between November and February, and you will taste the difference between what is exported and what stays here.

Then the waterfalls: Tad Fane, twin drops of over 100 metres into a forested gorge, and Tad Yuang, which you can walk behind. We overnight on the plateau, which is cold enough at night in December to need the blanket the guesthouse provides.

StayLodge or guesthouse near PaksongMealsBreakfast, lunch, dinnerTravel2 hours across the dayOn foot3 km, some steps at the falls

Day 3

Tad Lo, then down to Champasak

The eastern side of the plateau at Tad Lo, a village on a river with three waterfalls in walking distance and a genuinely relaxed hour or two in it. Then the descent and the drive to Champasak, a single street of French-era villas along the Mekong that is the quietest town on this itinerary.

We cross by ferry or bridge depending on where the river is, and arrive with the afternoon free.

StayGuesthouse or small hotel in ChampasakMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel3 hoursOn foot3 km at Tad Lo

Day 4

Wat Phou, then to the islands

The upper sanctuary at Wat Phou at 08:15, with the whole plain below you

Wat Phou at 07:30, before the heat and before anyone else. The complex runs up the hillside on an axis from two barays through collapsed sandstone pavilions to a sanctuary built around a spring, with a carved crocodile stone and a Buddha footprint above it. Parts of it date from the seventh century, which makes it older than anything at Angkor.

After lunch, two hours south to Nakasang and a boat out to the islands. You are on the water by mid-afternoon and the trip changes gear.

StayIsland guesthouse or small hotel, Don Khon or Don KhongMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel2 hours plus 20 minutes by boatOn foot2 km at Wat Phou, uphill on uneven stone

Day 5

Don Khon, Khone Phapheng and the old railway

A day on and around the islands. Don Khon and Don Det are joined by a French railway bridge from 1910, built to carry boats around the rapids, and the locomotive is still there rusting. We cycle the island - it is flat and eight kilometres end to end - past Li Phi falls and the fishing traps.

In the afternoon, Khone Phapheng, the widest waterfall in the world by some measures and the reason the French railway existed. It is loud, brown and genuinely enormous.

StaySame island accommodationMealsBreakfast, lunchTravel1 hour of boat and roadOn foot8 km by bicycle, flat, or by tuk-tuk if you prefer

Day 6

The last morning

Nothing scheduled before 10:00. A boat between the islands, a swim off a sandbar in the dry season, or a hammock. Then either back to Pakse for the flight, or 15 km south to the Cambodian border at Nong Nok Khiene if you are continuing to Stung Treng and Kratie.

If you are crossing, we hand you over with the paperwork done and a driver waiting on the far side, which removes the single most tiresome border in the region.

StayNot includedMealsBreakfastTravel3 hours to Pakse, or 30 minutes to the borderOn footWhatever you feel like

Prices

What is included

Pictures

Who this trip does not suit

• Anyone expecting mountains. Except for the plateau escarpment, the south is flat, and if the karst landscapes are what drew you to Laos they are all in the north.
• Travellers who want a resort standard on the islands. The best places on Don Khon and Don Khong are pleasant small hotels, not much more.
• People who want to see the Irrawaddy dolphins. The resident group on the Lao stretch is gone. Boatmen still sell dolphin trips from Don Khon and we will not book one, because what you would be paying for is a boat ride towards the Cambodian side and a small chance.
• Visitors in April, when the plateau is smoky, the lowland heat is at its worst and the falls are at their lowest.
• Anyone in a hurry. The whole point of the south is that it is slow, and compressing this into four days produces a much worse trip than the four-day northern one.