Description
Kong Lor Insight Challenge
A day of challenging trekking, a village home stay and kayaking on an underground river through Lao’s most famous cave
Main info

Highlights
Hike over a limestone mountain, experiencing fantastic views of karstic scenery
Stay with a local family in an authentic homestay in a remote village
Kayak on an underground river through a spectacular limestone cave
Experience a traditional Lao Buddhist blessing ceremony
This two day adventure will challenge you with some strenuous hiking over a mountain to reach a remote village. Spend the night in an authentic local homestay and experience the warmth of Lao hospitality. Kayak on an underground river through Lao’s most famous cave

What Will You Do
Day 1: Valley trekking and remote home stay
We depart from Thakek early in the morning to drive to Kong Lor Cave. Here we will be met by a local guide who will help us on our trek. The trail passes through both dense jungle and open areas, typical for a limestone landscape. It will take most groups around six hours to climb over the mountain, but along the way we will be rewarded by beautiful views. When reaching the valley on the other side we continue walking for another 2km to a small village. We will spend the night here with a local family in their authentic homestay.
Approximately 3.5 hours driving, 6 hours trekking
Day 2: Kong Lor and blue lagoon
After breakfast we shall participate in a traditional Baci ceremony held by the owner of the house. After the ceremony we take a short ride on a Lao-style tractor to the starting point of our kayaking on the nearby river bank. Our guide will give you a safety briefing and some kayaking instructions before we start. We then paddle downstream on the underground river running through the (Kong Lor) cave to the blue lagoon at the other end. Here you can relax in the cool blue waters before our lunch in a local restaurant. After lunch we will return to Thakhek.
Approximately 3 hours kayaking, 3.5 hours transfer
What to expect:
This might be considered as a challenging adventure for most people and the hike requires a high level of fitness. The accommodation in the village is very rustic with basic bathroom facilities. Kayaking through the cave is not very technical but is done in areas of complete darkness.

Details

Departure | Roughly at 7 am from Green Discovery office/your hotel |
Return | Roughly at 5 pm to Green Discovery office/your hotel |
Locations | Thakek |
What to bring | Hat, sunscreen, insect repellent, comfortable trekking clothes, good quality trekking shoes, refillable water bottle, swimming clothes (including a sarong for women), towel |
What is included | English speaking guide, drinking water, transport, government taxes, all entrance fees |
Help us to become 100% single use plastic free company!
We try to avoid plastic as much as possible, that is why we encourage you to bring your own refillable bottle.
We have water refillable station at our office where you can fill up your bottle. If you don’t have one we sell the 0,75 L Green Discovery aluminium bottles at our sales office. At the moment we will still need to use plastic bottles in some of our tours but we hope to reduce it as much as possible. Together with The Green Discovery Sustainability Fund we are working on installing water filters in all the villages we are visiting and we hope in the future we will not need to use plastic bottles anymore.
Still not suit you?