Qualla: Thakhek

Thakhek: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Torbenbrinker, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 21 March 1946, Prince Souphanouvong stood on the losing side of a battle in this town. His Lao Issara forces, fighting for an independence France had no intention of granting, were defeated here by French troops. Souphanouvong was wounded and fled across the Mekong to Thailand and on to Bangkok, where he remained in exile for three years. Within weeks the French had reasserted control over Laos. The prince who left Thakhek by way of the river would come back to the country three decades later as the first president of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, sworn in on 2 December 1975.

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Image: Torbenbrinker | CC BY-SA 3.0

Thakhek: The Eighty-Five Percent

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Torbenbrinker, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk the streets near the fountain square and the town reads as unmistakably French — official buildings with deep verandas, ochre villas, arcaded shophouses with their plaster going soft at the corners. But the population that filled those shops was not French, and for a long ti...

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Image: Torbenbrinker | CC BY-SA 3.0

Thakhek: Tunnels Under Mụ Giạ

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Prince Roy, CC BY 2.0. Colonial ambition left something else behind: the ruins of a railway that never ran. The French intended to link Thakhek to Tân Ấp in Vietnam, punching a system of tunnels through the mountains under the Mụ Giạ Pass to give landlocked Laos a route to the sea. Money and engineerin...

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Image: Prince Roy | CC BY 2.0

Thakhek: The Loop

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tango7174, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most travellers who come here are not staying. They are collecting a motorbike. The Thakhek Loop runs close to 500 kilometres — east on Route 12, north through the karst, then the long southbound haul back down Route 13 — and it is the reason the town has more scooter rental shop...

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Image: Tango7174 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Thakhek: Seven Kilometres of Darkness

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nomad Tales from Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0. The single most astonishing thing on the Loop is not a road at all. About 130 kilometres north of Thakhek, in Phu Hin Bun National Park, the Nam Hin Bun River disappears into a limestone mountain and stays underground for seven kilometres. Tham Kong Lo is navigated by motorised l...

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Image: Nomad Tales from Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0

Thakhek: River Town Weather

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BacLuong at Vietnamese Wikipedia, Public domain. Thakhek itself is small enough to cross on foot. Behind the shops on the roundabout opposite the Lao Development Bank, narrow lanes open into a produce market where the stalls sell what the surrounding country provides — including, on some days, snake, frog, squirrel and bat. Caf...

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Image: BacLuong at Vietnamese Wikipedia | Public domain