Hwy 10 M Khoune to Tha Thom, and Another One

Jul 18, 2008
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I just posted the following to a guy on the Thaivisa.com/forum net, he was asking about motoring from Phonsavanh down to Paksan.

Mac

Ah, the road from Phonsavanh to Moung Khoune to Tha Vieng, Tha Thom, and on south to Pakxan, "Hwy" 10.

December 2008 when the construction by the Vietnamese company had started, the trip wasn't too bad at all, had a couple of delays up on the north side of Tha Vieng (Vieng Leng, on the GT Rider map), but from there on was the original road which was generally OK. This in a 4WD Ford Ranger pickup.

Was back there a few days ago, Wednesday, 18 August, with the intent to head down to Tha Thom for a meeting and an RON. This again in a 4WD Ford Ranger pickup, but after 2-3 days of drizzle to rain. Departed from Moung Khoune about noon, about 2 km down the road hit mud, this is part of the new construction, wide road, high cuts, with tracks of other vehicles, including large trucks, going on through.

Got about 3 km down and almost high centered following the track left by a large truck, really difficult. Glad we had the 4WD as it enabled us to turn around and give up, headed back to the Nice Guest House in Phonsavanh.

On motorcycles? Guess that might work, with some difficulty. No idea just how far and how long that bad stretch is, obviously I was worried it went much of the way down to the Tha Vieng-Tha Thom area. But now info on that, sorry. Best to ask in the area.

We'd run out of time as had other places to visit, and lo and behold, the sun came out that Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday was good too when we motored on down to Vang Vieng.

Friday went back up Rt 13N to Ban Xang, just south of Moung Kassy, and headed south to Moung Met. Road was a tad rough in spots through the 58 km. Had three landslides that had been cleared, had several longish mud stretches but local motorcycles and pickups were getting through. We did have to pull out one pickup that'd gotten stuck so we could get through, no problem, total moving time 2 hr 20 min. Sunny since Wednesday afternoon.

Asked about going on down to Sanakham. One guy said probably OK as sun had been out for a couple days. A couple of other guys at M Met said forget it, not worth the chance of spending the night in the pickup, don't think my Thai wife would have appreciated that. So, we turned around and headed back to VV, driver OK there, so came on down to Vientiane.

Back to Nong Khai this noon, and RONing at a friend's place in Nam Phong. Back to Rangist, Klong 10, tomorrow, Sunday.

Mac
only via four (4) wheels, with apologies to the forum.