Limestone Forest Viewpoint is a road side viewpoint overlooking karst mountains in the Northern Section of the Phoun Hin Boun National Protected Area in Khammouane Province, Laos.
About the Limestone Forest Viewpoint
The Limestone Forest Viewpoint is one of the first or last stops on the famous Thakhek Loop, depending upon which direction you travel around it. The Thakhek Loop is a well known road route covering approximately 450 km around the edge of the Phoun Hin Boun National Protected Area in Southern Laos which starts and finishes in Thakhek. Thakhek is just across the border from Thailand on the other side of the Mekong River to the Thai town of Nakhon Phanom. Most people travel to Thakhek via Thailand because the roads in Thailand are considerably better than those in Laos and the journey from Vientiane to Thakhek is painfully slow. The Thakhek takes 3 to 5 days with most travellers doing the loop in an anti-clockwise direction over 4 days stopping in the same places each night because of the availability of accommodation and restaurants in this otherwise sparsely populated region of Laos. Travelling the Thakhek Loop in an anti-clockwise direction over 4 days you reach the Limestone Forest Viewpoint, also known as Phou Pha Marn, on the fourth day.
Limestone Forest Viewpoint in Khammouane ProvinceFrom the Limestone Forest Viewpoint you get a good view of steep sided rocky hills protruding through the dense Hin Boun Forest. The Hin Boun Forest is a well preserved wilderness area with a wide variety of animal, insect and plant life including macaques and gibbons, elephants, 43 species of bat and a few tigers which are seldom seen. Green Discovery, a well known trekking and adventure activity company based in Laos, have built a restaurant at the viewpoint. Green Discovery have also installed zip lines, a ‘spider web bridge’, and fixed climbing ropes near the viewpoint and they take customers on two to three hour long trips amongst the rocky peaks affording visitors even better views of the Hin Boun Forest.
Location of the Limestone Forest Viewpoint
The Limestone Forest Viewpoint is 136 km by road from Thakhek.
