Tham Pa Seuam, Thakhek Laos

Tham Pa Seuam (Pa Seuam Cave) is a beau­ti­ful 3‑kilometer long riv­er cave which can be ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed by rent­ing kayaks as part of a 3‑hour tour inside, or swim­ming through the cave. Oth­er­wise, you can walk to the entrance of the cave but can­not go very far inside (free) with­out swim­ming. Even the entrance is worth check­ing out if you have time, and the l near­by Nong Thao Lake is beau­ti­ful. I didn’t see any­one else on the 800m walk to the cave.

Get there:

Drive

Head­ing East from Thakhek on Route 12, around 4 kilo­me­ters turn left down a dirt road when you see the sign for “Bud­dha Cave and Pa Seuam Cave”. It’s 6 km on a dirt road. Dur­ing the rainy sea­son, the road has been known to get rough but was quite well grad­ed in the dry sea­son. After about 4 km take anoth­er left at the sign for the cave. It’s one of the first pos­si­ble stops on the Thakhek Loop.

Walk

Park in the park­ing lot (3,000 kip) next to a bunch of stalls. From here you can also access the Bud­dha Cave near­by. At the back of the stalls, there’s a sign “Pase­um Cave 800m”. Fol­low the path through the jun­gle. When the path forks just keep to the left. You’ll arrive at a nar­row wood­en bridge. Cross the bridge and fol­low the path along the base of a karst moun­tain. Soon you’ll see Nong Thao Lake (actu­al­ly “Nong” means “Lake” but this is how it’s writ­ten in many places). Keep going along the path and you see the open­ing for the cave. There are some wood­en platforms/tables right in front of it.

Kayaking or Swimming Tham Pa Seuam

Kayak­ing or swim­ming part or all of the 3 km through the cave would def­i­nite­ly be a high­light, prob­a­bly of this entire area. A sign near the park­ing area says it costs 100,000 kip for a kayak rental (with a flash­light, water­proof bag etc.) for 3 hours. I’d guess this also comes with a guide. In Thakhek at the tourist infor­ma­tion cen­ter or through Green Dis­cov­ery tour oper­a­tors, you will be quot­ed from 350,000 to 550,000 kip (per per­son) depend­ing on the num­ber of peo­ple for a full day tour of Bud­dha Cave and Tham Pa Seuam. But you can eas­i­ly vis­it these sites on your own with a motor­cy­cle, though arrive ear­li­er in the day if you want to kayak through Tham Pa Seuam so you can arrange to rent a kayak. If you want to swim I’d rec­om­mend hav­ing a water­proof flash­light, hel­met, life­jack­et, and dry­bags which you might be able to rent.