18 July 2016, Monday. I left Vientiane with a (finally) (hopefully) healthy motorcycle. No more technical troubles. I set off at around 7am in the morning, as I had planned for a long day today.
The first part of my route today.Route to Konglor cave.
Konglor Cave (Tham Kong Lo) is a limestone cave in Laos, and is sometimes missed by the casual tourist as it’s somewhat out of the way. But hey! Since I have a perfectly working motorcycle now, no problem for me!
Finally! Beautiful straight roads! Something I’ve not seen in quite a while! It’s rather strange that just a few weeks ago, I was yearning for some winding roads and twisty fun. It seem that I might have an overdose of it, and this stretch of flat road was very, very welcoming!Welcome to Konglor Cave. Not exactly a very welcoming entrance.Boat tickets for Konglor Cave. 5,000kips for motorcycle parking, 5,000kips for entrance to the park, and 110,000kips for the single-person boat ride.To get through Konglor Cave, first, you need to hop onto a row boat and get to the far bank.…and once at the far bank, you take a short hike to the cave entrance. There you’ll find some more boats.My boatman took some time to locate his boat.…then he has to find his boat motor and fit it onto the boat.…and off we go! Actually, this shot was taken at the OTHER end of the Konglor Cave.
Inside the cave, it was pitch black. Completely dark, except for the headlamps we had. It’s a limestone cave with dramatic karst formation. The cave has been cited as a “one of Southeast Asia’s geological wonders” – stretching some 7kms from one end to the other.
The other end is a little village, and I was given about 10mins to explore before we head back on the same route. Nothing much here.
…except this little bridge here. No vehicles passable. Even human passage is questionable. Used only by the locals – I suppose no tourists too.My boatride back is on the one on the right.sgBikerBoy and Konglor CaveAfter Konglor, I headed towards Thakhek – the town that’s somewhat between Vientiane and Pakse – and spent the night there. Noticed that “loop” there. I had to backtrack to head to Thakhek. Konglor’s really kinda out of the way. I arrived in Thakhek just before sunset.How can a Singaporean like me not love Thakhek? They even have a road named after Singapore! Bad spelling, though… The Mekong river is in the background, and Thailand is on the other side.
