Xe Champhone Wetlands
Xe Champhone Wetlands
East of Savannakhet city in the south of Laos is the Xe Champhone Wetlands. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands came into force for Laos in 2010 and designated two sites as Wetlands of International Importance. The Xe Champhone Wetlands with a size of 12,400 ha is one of them. It’s a remote and difficult to access flatland area of marshes, swamps, flooded woodland forest and, amazing to see in Laos; wildlife – alive and in their natural habitat! Ramsar described the Xe Champhone Wetlands as “an outstanding example of a river with many oxbow lakes, deep pools and mats of dense floating vegetation, rare in Lao. It supports the largest population of the critically endangered Siamese Crocodiles (Crocodylus siamensis) in the country and protects other species such as the endangered Elongated Tortoise (Indotestudo elongata)”.
On Stray it’s unlikely you’ll see crocodiles but we do visit four sites of interest within the Xe Champhone area: Monkey Forest, Hotay Pidok Temple, Turtle Lake and Old Wat Talaeo.
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Dong Ling (“Monkey Forest”)
A spiritual and very picturesque and really quite incredible 3ha patch of sacred forest in Ban Dong Muong village, home to approximately 2000 Rhesus Macaque monkeys (i.e. too many monkeys for this sized forest so 100% chance of seeing them). An amazing place with walks around and through the forest where the monkeys aren’t shy but not aggressive either. The monkeys are protected and the locals believe they are the spirits of people that used to live there and therefore their customs and taboos protects any monkeys from be harmed, bought, traded, eaten etc. It’s even said that when a monkey dies, the other monkeys bring the body into the middle of the forest and perform a somewhat human like funeral. It’s really incredible to see wild monkeys in their natural habitat in Laos. The village is very small and basic with one temple and a couple of dozen houses. Because of the over abundance of monkeys in this patch of sacred forest, there isn’t enough food for them. Locals tend to feed them sticky rice and candy and the patch of forest near the village is littered with rubbish. Stray plays its part by educating and helping the village clean up the rubbish and feeding the monkeys only bananas and not sticky rice and candy! (Overnight here in a homestay).
Hotay Pidok Library
A beautiful and very unique wooden structure built over 200 years ago to house Buddhist scriptures that are written in Burmese Pali, Khmer and ancient Lao script on palm leaves. In excellent condition today, this structure high on stilts and raised above a pond is very different to other temples in Laos today. There are approximately 4000 palm leaf books in the library. The rest of temple complex is quite large and active today with monks, novices and villages frequenting the property. It overlooks the Xe Champhone river and the sacred Monkey forest on the other side.
Nong Dao (“Turtle Lake”)
A really special village called Ban Done Deng is home to a natural pond that is home to the vulnerable Asiatic Softshell Turtle. The pond is 90-100 years old; the same age of the village which is home to Phu Tai people who are ethnically and linguistically different to Lao but are still within the broad, largest Lao ethnic group. The pond is home to 200+ softshell turtles ranging in ages of up to 100 years old which are believed to be sacred by the villages and hence has helped protect them and see them grow in existence. The locals believe that if you harm a turtle or even speak ill of them, you will be cursed and get sick. The village has set up a fund to protect the turtles and of the $0.25 entrance fee, part goes to the village, part to the guardians who protect the turtles by night and part to the ticket seller. The turtles are left to their own will but if one escapes the village they put it back. They are so revered in superstition that is a turtle dies; the village gives them the same funeral in a temple as a human would receive. It’s an amazing place and you can see many turtles. The turtles are called to the surface for food by the locals who sing at them from a board walk!
Old Wat Taleow
The ruins of what was an amazing and unique temple built before 1918 and was important to Buddhism in the local community until it was bombed in 1969. Today, what remains of the temple is a bullet shrouded outer wall, bright and beautiful frescos on the inner sanctum, an area surrounded by spirit forest including a tree so large it takes 6-7 people to circle it and bomb craters. This temple is like no modern temple in Laos today and is more symbolic of Wat Phou in Champasak and the temples of Bagan in Burma and Angkor in Siem Reap.
