Qualla: Xe Bang Fai River https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:39:18 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Xe Bang Fai River https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river Xe Bang Fai River: Introduction https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. For seven kilometres, the Xe Bang Fai has a roof. Somewhere in the limestone of Khammouane province the river stops being a river in the open air and becomes something else entirely, sliding into a mountain through an entrance arch sixty metres high and travelling in the dark beneath a ceiling that in places lifts 120 metres above the water. The Lao call the passage Tham Khoun Xe. It is reckoned to be one of the largest river caves in the world, and the odd thing about that claim is how recently anybody outside the immediate valley was in a position to test it.

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Xe Bang Fai River: The Dimensions of the Dark https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. Numbers do more work than adjectives here. The subterranean channel runs about seven kilometres. Passages average roughly 76 metres across and widen to 200 at the extreme; the average ceiling height is about 53 metres and the tallest chambers reach 120. The water itself is compar...

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-the-dimensions-of-the-dark.mp3 0:06 2 full Xe Bang Fai River: Who Knew It First https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lao villagers had been going into the cave mouth for generations before anyone drew a map of it, fishing the entrance reaches and harvesting birds' nests from the walls. The first European survey came in 1904, followed the next year by a second attempt led by the French explorer ...

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-who-knew-it-first.mp3 0:06 3 full Xe Bang Fai River: From the Annamites to the Mekong https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. The river begins high on the Annamite Range at the Lao-Vietnamese border, around 17 degrees 3 minutes north and 106 degrees 21 minutes east, and runs 239 kilometres west and south through Khammouane and Savannakhet provinces. It is a working river the whole way, its banks lined w...

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-from-the-annamites-to-the-mekong.mp3 0:06 4 full Xe Bang Fai River: The Water That Was Sent Here https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since April 2010 the Xe Bang Fai has carried water that never used to be its own. The Nam Theun 2 hydropower project takes water from the Nam Theun, a separate Mekong tributary, drives it through turbines rated at 1,075 megawatts, and releases it into the Xe Bang Fai down a 27-ki...

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-the-water-that-was-sent-here.mp3 0:06 5 full Xe Bang Fai River: Recognised at Last https://qualla.com/xe-bang-fai-river/ Photo credit Italian walrus-63, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cave lies inside Hin Nam No National Park, 941 square kilometres of limestone declared a national park by prime ministerial decree in January 2020. In 2025 it went further, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an extension of Vietnam's Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Par...

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Image: Italian walrus-63 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/7/4/2/xe-bang-fai-river-wp/w742-xe-bang-fai-river-recognised-at-last.mp3 0:06 6 full