Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Laos → Tad Xay and Pha Xay

Location: East of Vientiane, Laos

Time Required: ~2 hours if you’re planning to swim (not including travel time – it’ll take around 2.5 hours to get to/from here from Vientiane)

Red Tape/Notes: Pha Xay will be rather nondescript during the dry season, and swimming conditions at Tad Xay may not be ideal during the rainy season. I recommend selecting which one is more important to you (visibly impressive falls, or ideal swimming conditions) and if you happen to get both, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

What’s Nearby?: Phou Khao Khouay, Buddha Park

Tad Xay and Pha Xay are a pair of “twin” waterfalls in close proximity to each other within the Phou Khao Khouay National Protected Area. A road leads directly to a small parking area (although the road is probably not particularly navigable in the wet season) where you can find trails to both the falls – the trails are very short, maybe 2 km to Tad Xay and 1 km or less to Pha Xay. The falls are both created by the Houey Xay stream; the word “Tad” means “waterfall” and “Pha” means “cliff” so “Xay (stream) Waterfall” and “Xay (stream) Cliff”. You may be able to deduce from this that Pha Xay is only a seasonal waterfall; during the dry season, it’s really just a large cliff (as it was when we visited). It was so nondescript that I didn’t even take a picture of it (although I did take a picture of the densely forested gorge below the falls); during the rainy season, however, it’s apparently transformed into an incredibly powerful and beautiful waterfall. We’ll have to come back to see it in action. Luckily for everyone, Tad Xay is nice, regardless of the season, and is perhaps even nicer during the dry season, since the diminished water flow makes it’s beautiful cascades more apparent, and the water at its base clear and pleasant for swimming. It really is a remarkably nice little swimming area, and we had it all to ourselves. You can swim under the lowest tier of the waterfall to where a ledge shelters a narrow section of rock allowing you to traverse the lengths of the falls before plunging back through the waterfall into the swimming area beyond. Overall an extremely pleasant way to spend an hour, particularly if you’re here during the hotter months of March through June.

Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Laos → Tad Xay and Pha Xay