Si Phan Don
The Mekong breaks into a maze of islands at the Cambodian border, then drops over falls more than ten kilometres wide.
- Arrival
- Pakse International · PKZ
- To the islands
- About 125 km south of Pakse airport
- Private jets
- Via PKZ, open 06:00 to 18:00
- Best time
- November to April
The city
Where the Mekong splits.
In the far south of Laos the Mekong spreads out and divides around a scatter of islands, half of which go under when the river floods. Don Khong is the largest. Most visitors stay on it, or on Don Det and its neighbour Don Khon, close to the falls.
The French could not get their boats up the Khone Phapheng cascades, so in 1893 they laid a portage railway across Don Khon and took the vessels over in pieces. The line was later run on to Don Det and saw its last train around 1940. Its viaduct is now a path, and the locomotive Eloïse, built in 1911, rests under a shed at Ban Khon.
- Khone Phapheng Falls Rapids up to 21 m high across 10.8 km of channels, carrying an average of nearly 11,000 m³ of water a second.
- The old railway The French line’s 170-metre concrete viaduct, its rails gone, now a track for walkers and bicycles.
- Eloïse A 1911 Orenstein & Koppel engine at Ban Khon, the only steam locomotive still in Laos.
Arriving
Fly to Pakse, then south by road.
The islands have no airstrip. Pakse International, 4 km outside Pakse, is the way in, some 125 km north of Si Phan Don as the crow flies.
- Bangkok 1 h 05
- Singapore 2 h 10
- Beijing 4 h 20
- Nairobi 10 h 20 long-range jet
- Frankfurt 12 h 20 long-range jet
When to go
November to April.
Figures for Pakse, the nearest long-term record, upriver. From November to April almost no rain falls and the afternoons sit at 30 to 35 °C. The wet season peaks in August at about 500 mm.
- 31° J 2
- 33° F 9
- 34° M 22
- 35° A 77
- 33° M 219
- 31° J 406
- 30° J 375
- 30° A 506
- 30° S 299
- 31° O 116
- 30° N 33
- 30° D 5
Elsewhere in Laos
More reasons to come.
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