Savannakhet: what to visit in this little-known city of Laos

To complete the article on " get your visa for Thailand in Savannakhet", here is what you can visit in the city of Savannakhet.

As I mentioned in the previous article, many people are content to make a round trip without even visiting the area. Savannakhet is just a small border town with very few "real" tourists, meaning those who visit the town and the region.

We won't see everything due to lack of time, preferring to go and visit the surrounding area rather than staying stuck in the city, but here is roughly what you can do and see in Savannakhet:

• Colonial buildings
• The Church of Saint Therese
• Museums
• Temples
• Walk along the Mekong River

Colonial buildings

As you probably remember, Laos was part of French Indochina, and Savannakhet, like many other cities in Laos, was adorned with administrative buildings and private houses in a Western style, contrasting particularly with the huts of the time, by the way. Today the contrast is less striking since the huts have disappeared (at least in the city) but it is still interesting to see the traces of this past, the administrative buildings even today still have their "function" subtitled in French.

Most of the buildings date from the 20s, some are abandoned, others have been renovated, especially since the creation of the Friendship Bridge, which has brought this sleepy town back to life. We only see these buildings from the outside because they are all private properties, like the Savannakhet Provincial Hospital, which we will pass by for example.

A good example is what was our hotel the first time, the Mekong hotel, located in an old colonial-style property. The latter ended up closing due to lack of customers (because its main asset was to be next to the Consulate which has now moved further north of the city).

The Church of Saint Therese

Built according to information found in 1914 or in the 20s, the Saint Therese Church is still in operation for the Vietnamese Catholics of Savannakhet. A mass is celebrated every morning except Saturday. In front of the church is a new square which is used to host a market in the evening.

It is not far from this church that you will find most of the points of interest in the city including many colonial buildings and the market square (Talat Yen) located just opposite with many small shops all around.

It is also not far from this church that you will find the shop for rent a motorbike (semi manual), 320 Baht for 24 hours (around €7). Refer to the map at the bottom of the article.

Cathedral Square in Savannakhet.

Museums

There are, to my knowledge, at least 2 museums in Savannakhet:

– The Provincial Museum, this is a typical administration building from the French colonial period. It was recently renovated to be the Provincial Museum. It includes archaeological remains and objects related to the Vietnam War as well as historical photos.

– The dinosaur museum. Yes, yes. Fossils that were unearthed by a Frenchman in the 30s, including a tyrannosaurus tooth. To date, there are fossils from 4 different classes (ichthyosaurs, iguanodon, theropods and sauropods). These dinosaur skeletons date from the Triassic and Cretaceous periods.

They come from an extraction site (stopped in 2000) near the village of Ban Tang Vay, Xonbouly district. A little anecdote, in Laotian, a dinosaur is "soberly" called "giant lizard".

It is this presence of fossils in the region that explains the roundabout with the dinosaur figurines near the department store (See the map)

Savannakhet Provincial Museum.

A temple: Wat Xayaphoum

Actually, there is not that much of interest. There is a recent and colorful Chinese temple, but apart from that The city's main temple is Wat Xayaphoum.

It is the largest and oldest temple in Savannakhet (dating back to 1542), whose architecture is the best example of traditional Savannakhet architecture. Wat Xaiyaphoum is located across the Mekong River and next to our hotel, today this Wat is used as a temple and a school for novice monks.

Deceived by the modern appearance, apparently due to a recent renovation, I had not been particularly interested in the place at the time. Inside Wat Xaiyaphoum is the Ho Tay, a library where 200-year-old manuscripts are kept, made of palm leaves. This Buddhist temple being the most sacred in the region, it serves in particular as a setting for the Lao New Year (Mi Lao Bi) and the Mekong River boat racing festival (Boun Suang Huea festival).

Walk along the Mekong River

This is the place where you find the "mukata" type restaurants, grills using a kind of plancha. Besides the price being quite high compared to Thailand (175 bahts) it wasn't great in terms of quantity and taste. But the walk on the bank is still nice. Going back up north you will come across a small public park where people do their daily exercise in the evening including the famous "Asian style" sessions with techno music and gestures where, as everyone is in sync, it looks like a dance group.

The “luxury” of Savannakhet

Apart from the new shopping centre, we did not see a single recent building (as a reminder, this is the 2nd largest city in Laos!)

It is also the only "luxury" in this city. Since there was not much to do, we decided, as good "city dwellers" that we are, to go there for a walk in the evening, in fact, we were looking for a Swensens type store because we were craving ice cream... We finally found ice cream in the supermarket but it made us discover the "strange" shopping mall that it was.

It was nothing like what you can find in Thailand. It was more like a sort of covered market halfway between a mini Chatuchak and a local chip shop…

Here, we will attend a singing show, season 2 of what looks like a "new star" type selection. Obviously, it was popular, there were a lot of people! Being the only foreigner in the area, I did not go unnoticed... While I was taking a few photos of the event, I saw behind me a young man trying to take a photo of me with his phone! Turning around, I would then offer him a little souvenir photo in good and due form!

The charm of small streets

Overall we didn't walk around the city too much either because of the heat. But from what we saw it's calm, very calm... Some streets aren't even tarmacked. As mentioned below, there are no buildings, only townhouses or shophouses.

For those looking for a little rest this is certainly a suitable place. Apart from the "mukata" we will eat at the restaurant of our hotel which had the merit of being not too bad (and especially at our hotel)