Tom Grundy's Konglor Loop 2018 Trip Page

The Konglor Loop is a popular excursion from Thakhek east on 12 and then north to Laksao and then west on 8 with a detour from Nahin down to Konglor Cave and then back to 8 and west to 13 and back to Thakhek. It is usually done on motorcycles or scooters. Overall it covers some 4-500 Km (depending on side trips and if you backtrack instead of looping) on mostly paved road although there are some sections where the pavement is totally gone and plenty of potholes. Throw in some trucks, villages, cows, chickens, pigs, dogs, kids, motorbikes, bikes, rain, and a few passes and it makes for interesting riding. A good bit of it is through pretty spectacular karst scenery. In addition in October at the end of the rainy season it was time for rice harvesting so lots of people were out in the fields cutting rice and collecting into piles where they fed it into a machine to separate the grains (I presume that is what was happening). There were a lot of good photo opportunities. Many were marred by power lines along both sides of the road and for at least some of the trip I was loath to stop for various reasons so I missed out on a few. I also am pretty shy about sticking the camera in various locals faces, although there were some pretty good characters along the way.

Day -1 we rented a scooter and went to a dead end road where Julie practiced riding for a while. I kept telling her it was easier if you went a little faster. Then we tooled around the area a bit before another training session and returning to the hotel. Conveniently they ride on the right side of the road (mostly) in Laos so that was one less thing to worry about. In reality they ride whereever they ride weaving across the entire road to dodge potholes and riding on the left before and after left turns as necessary. It also seemed that lights and turn signals were pretty optional. Fortunately traffic was mostly at a fairly relaxed pace and rarely exceeded 60 km/hr and was often much slower. We both had international driving permits but we didn't have the motorcycle endorsement. Julie had almost no experience on motorbikes but I had had a motorcycle for a number of years back when I lived in Texas and Washington. We didn't know if the permit would be good enough if we got pulled over so we tried to avoid the police checkpoint areas in Thakhek. In one place that meant riding the wrong way down a one way road (along with lots of others).

Day 1 - We picked up our scooters (Yamaha QBIX 125cc) from Wang's and left some of our luggage there. We got gas and headed out of town. The first part was along the way to the climbing so we were familiar with it. Soon we passed that and headed out into fresh territory. One of the caves we planned to visit appeared to be closed, so we continued on. At some point my front wheel developed a bit of a bump. I looked at it and Julie saw that the mudguard was loose, so we taped that up and continued, but there was still something wrong. I could see that there was a slightly flattened place in the rim, so maybe that was it. We stopped for tasty noodle soup and continued on. I was coming to the conclusion that it was something else with the front wheel when it got markedly worse. I stopped and at this point could see that it was the front left bearing that was broken. I limped it a few hundred feet to a place I could get off the road to inspect it more. It was in bad shape and I could move the wheel back and forth without moving the fork. It certainly wasn't safely rideable at anything more than a walking pace. Julie remembered passing a guesthouse a short while earlier so we hid and locked my bike a bit and doubled up on hers and headed back. It was a lot farther to any guesthouse and the first had no wifi or english. At a gas station I managed to get a text to the rental place and after much stress and confusion was able to get them to talk with a Laotian there and got directed to go another Km to a repair place. They didn't have the right pieces for such a new bike but showed me what to do to replace the bearings and sold me the closest thing they had and a few tools. We headed back and I got the wheel off but the outer part of the old bearing was pretty fused to the wheel. I was able to use what remained of the rubber cap to wedge the new bearing in and then used the center of the old bearing for a spacer since the old one was now too long. I got it all back together and tightened it a lot and it was ok to ride - for an unknown time. We gingerly headed up the road and quickly came to a guesthouse with wifi and got a room for the night. With a little more confusion we were able to say where we were and what we did and the rental place would bring a replacement out the next morning.

rice paddy and distant stilt hut
(this was just past Green Climbers Home)

Julie on Blinky

locals loaded onto a mini-truck

bad bearing

bearing "fixed"

Day 2 - As promised the new scooter showed up around 8. We siphoned the gas into the new one and I went from being "red leader" to the "dark knight" or something like that (Julie was on old reliable "Blinky"). We headed off up the road with a stop for more noodle soup by a school. The hydro project visitor center was closed either briefly for cleaning or more long term for some work. In any case it was closed so I didn't get to see what is supposed to be a pretty extensive display about the definitely extensive hydro projects. We went to Song Sou waterfall, which we probably should have skipped, and then up a series of switchbacks to a highlands. This area seemed more rural and some of the villages appeared to be a lot poorer than what we had seen. One was packed with people walking and bicycling along - many with parasols. Maybe it was time for school to let out? We also got a fairly brief but decisive downpour. Other than having to hide the electronics and rain hitting our glasses it felt pretty good. The smell of wet cow manure reminded me of walking across fields to explore castles or ring forts in Ireland. We also passed a fairly massive reservoir complete with very complex shoreline and many dead trees protruding from the water. There also was a traffic stop - a counterbalanced bamboo pole across the road that they raised by letting some slack on the rope on the end and waived us through. This was about where we originally planned to spend the first night, so we were back on track but about half a day behind. Luckily we were getting more adept at riding and with less truck traffic and potholes we were able to pick up the pace. Laksao was a dusty town that seemed to mostly cater to trucks heading to and from Vietnam. We stopped for coffee and headed west on 8 back into karst terrain complete with pretty massive cliffs and some huge caves up on the sides of mountains.

nice light before sunrise

Julie spices her breakfast soup

Song Sou waterfall

cattle and water buffalo below dam in Nakai

some of the road along the lake in the highlands

flooded forest

limestone mountain east of Lak Sao

Julie looking at and "playing" the draperies (like a gong) in Dragon Cave

more of Dragon Cave

following Julie down a hill

Back on the bikes we continued on past Ban Thabak where enterprising Lao had built boats out of some of the drop tanks that had been dropped on them by the USA (along with millions of cluster bombs and other ordinance). It is estimated that around 25% failed to explode and are still sitting in the ground waiting. Some of the areas have painstakingly been cleared of UXO (unexploded ordinance), but many have not and every year farmers are maimed and killed by them. We went over another pass and near sunset (although it more just got increasingly darker because of the clouds) we got to Nahin where we got a cheap fan room. After washing the dust of the road off we walked to a restaurant and had a triple - we each got a dinner and split a plate of fried morning glory (veggies). On the TV they were showing some program from Thailand with Muay Thai fights featuring fighters from around the world (and a lot from Thailand).

more rice and karst and water hyacinth

"bomb" boats on the Namkading river near Tha Bak

hydro project and village near Nahin

Day 3 - After some snacks for first breakfast we headed south. We were on a cutoff that was dirt for a while. We hit the main road to Konglor at a bridge and a Lao traffic jam (cows). Once they crossed the bridge and the 4-wheeled vehicles went we were clear to continue on. For a while we were on a straight shot between some power lines (Laos has some serious hydro projects and exports electricity to Thailand). Then we turned off of this straight road and things got more scenic as the valley got narrower. We passed a few villages and many rice paddies with karst mountains on either side. In Konglor we stopped for breakfast before heading to the cave. We had to pay to park and for the boat trip. They made me put most of my stuff in a locker which was fine. First we were on a barely paddled tippy boat to cross the river. Then we walked past the rapids at the mouth of the cave and got into a little long-tailed boat. (capacity 3 plus the boatman, but we were just 2). Then we headed up the river into the dark (ok, it was already pretty dark when we started). At first it was like heading up a subway tunnel but then it opened up into some really massive galleries. We stopped and walked through a section with more interesting cave formations that were illuminated with electric lights. Then back onto the boats to head upstream. We gunned it up through a few rapids and then we had to get out and wade around one that the boatmen took the boats up without the weight of passengers. Then back in and out the other end of the cave and upstream to the landing.

Laotian rush hour with mini-cattle

rice fields and cliffs

more rice fields and cliffs. The stone wall is an aqueduct.

food in Konglor before the cave

walking in Konglor Cave

We walked around a bit and admired some water buffalo and some strange caterpillars that were hanging down from the trees and wrapping themselves up in leaves. It would have been cool to see the giant spiders that live here - but only from a distance. Then we loaded back up for the trip downstream. For the top rapid the boatman squeezed past us to the front and paddled frantically with a piece of bamboo that was split in half. Then we ran the rest with only a few scrapes. There were some truly enormous chunks of rock that had fallen down from the ceiling at some point - large house sized. The villages on either side of the cave are connected by a 5 or so hour trek over the mountains but they observed domestic ducks coming out of the cave (one story - another is carved wood and baskets) so in 1920 people went through in a boat. Later they were able to transport motorbikes and other supplies through the cave. The next development will be to switch from long-tailed gas engines to electric boats to cut down on the noise and pollution in the cave.

bridge to the village on the far side of the cave

funky caterpillar - large finger sized

another caterpillar building with leaves

the upstream cave entrance

the boatman paddles furiously with the split bamboo piece seen in the previous photo

Julie inside the downstream cave entrance

the downstream cave entrance

When we got out of the cave it looked a bit like rain was coming. We headed back up the road with a short detour to look at one guest house that had some rave reviews - it seemed a bit pricy to my dirtbag sensibilities, so we continued on. There was one short lived rain shower but most of the ride was dry. We stopped to take a look at another guest house-resort by the river but it appeared to be closed for the season. The Dark Knight had had a few spells where it refused to start but it always did after a few tries. Until now. My working hypothesis is that the switch on the kickstand would stick making the bike think the kickstand was down and thus not start. Anyway after about 5 minutes it started for Julie, but we were wary of it now. We went to a slightly more upscale guesthouse in Nahin and went out for another triple dinner.

rice fields and a village

Day 4 - Today was a lot of driving, but not many stops. We gassed up for the last time and then headed up over a fairly gnarly pass - it would have been perfectly fine except there were sections without pavement that were pretty steep and had some loose soil and gravel and potholes. There were also a number of pretty big trucks just parked in the middle of the road. These had a bunch of stones piled under the wheels to hold them there. Maybe the engines weren't up to the task. Despite some trouble we made it up without having to walk any and then stopped at a stone forest overlook. Julie held my bike so I could leave the engine running and not put down the kickstand while I took some photos. Then we headed down and through some pretty scenic valleys before Viengkham where we turned south onto 13. This town really seemed to cater to Vietnamese with lots of signs and truck stops (or what seems to pass as truck stops in these parts). We should have stopped for lunch there. The road south to Thakhek was less scenic but not too bad and we were old hands now. When we stopped for lunch I parked with the stand that lifted the back wheel to avoid the kickstand. That seemed to work but it was an intermittent problem anyway so not a definitive solution. Back in Thakhek we went to the Mekong Hotel and checked in. We were in a shabby but functional room on the 4th floor. The hallway was a balcony overlooking the Mekong. The window faced east and had a view over town towards some karst towers. We shuttled the stuff we left at the bike rental place here and then we siphoned the gas out of my bike into Julie's (we bought a chunk of hose and I was able to start the siphon with an old water bottle) and I returned my bike.

a bit of the stone forest

All in all it was a most excellent excursion although there were definitely some frustrations - mostly about my scooter and also wanting to stop to take photos, but not wanting to or feeling like there was time to stop. We got the scooter from Wang's, they lose points for having a bad front bearing and having poor English communication but they gain a lot of points for having any communication once we were out there (thanks T-Mobile for sort of working too) and they definitely did right by us when they brought a whole new scooter for me to use to finish the ride. In hindsight I might have rented from Mixay in town instead, but it worked out. The trip goes through some really scenic country with what seemed to me fairly authentic people just living their lives. It was neat to see the rice harvest at least partly by hand and taking a boat through a big cave is just cool. It was a nice break from climbing and let us see a lot more of Laos than just Thakhek and the area by the climbing. I would highly recommend it. You could do it much faster if you wanted to or slow down and take it even slower.

After that we were back to climbing and the festival of Awk Phansa in Thakhek.

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