Khone Phapheng Falls
Interesting facts
- Measured from one edge of its many channels to the other, the Khone Falls system is about 10,783 metres wide, roughly 6.7 miles.
- French gunboats tried in 1891, 1892 and 1893 to haul themselves up the falls with hundreds of men on ropes, and every attempt failed.
- To get around the falls the French built a portage railway in 1893, on which steamships were dismantled, carried across Don Khon island and reassembled upstream.
- For its first four years the island railway was temporary, its track lifted behind each train and laid again in front of it.
- Until 2009 the short railway around the falls was the only railway ever built and operated in Laos.
- The only surviving steam locomotive in Laos, built in 1911 by Orenstein & Koppel and named Eloïse, still stands on Don Khon near the falls.
- The falls are the main reason the Mekong has never been fully navigable from the sea up into China.
- The giant Mekong catfish found in these waters is one of the largest freshwater fish on Earth, reported to reach about 3 metres and nearly 300 kg.
Why it is worth it
Khone Phapheng is where the Mekong breaks. Just above the Cambodian border in southern Laos, the river spreads into Si Phan Don, the "Four Thousand Islands", a maze of islets, rock bars and channels. It then drops over a long series of ledges known together as the Khone Falls. The rapids run for nearly 10 km, and taken edge to edge across all their channels the falls measure more than 10 km wide, which is why they are often called the widest in the world. Khone Phapheng is the largest single cascade in the system, a broad, churning drop whose highest fall is about 21 metres.
The falls are impressive for their volume more than their height. The Mekong's average flow here is about 11,000 cubic metres a second, and floods have pushed it past 49,000. In the wet season, roughly June to September, the individual steps disappear under one heaving wall of brown water and spray. In the dry months the rock ledges come back into view and the water splits into separate torrents between them. The falls also shelter rare fish: the endangered giant Mekong catfish lives in these waters, and a small hillstream loach is named after the falls.
The falls also shaped colonial history. In the late nineteenth century French colonial officers tried to make the Mekong a navigable route upriver, and the falls defeated every attempt. Their answer was a short railway across the islands of Don Det and Don Khon to carry boats and goods around the barrier. Today, paved paths lead from the visitor area to several viewpoints on the bank, some of them very close to the water. The visitor centre also displays a huge tree trunk recovered from the river, which features in a local legend.
Getting there
The falls lie in Champasak Province near the village of Nakasong. The main regional city is Pakse, about 130 km north along Route 13, with Pakse International Airport (PKZ) about 132 km away. Buses and minivans run from Pakse to Nakasong in two to three hours. From there a tuk-tuk to the falls takes 20–30 minutes. Stung Treng in Cambodia, about 48 km away, is closer in a straight line but lies across the border.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Khone Falls and Pha Pheng Falls together form a waterfall located in Champasak Province on the Mekong River in southern Laos, near the border with Cambodia. It is the widest waterfall in the world at 10,783 metres in width from one edge of its multiple channels to the other.
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