Xepon (Laos) Travel Guide. Custom Map and All Practical Details

July 2023 · 10 min read · Xepon

Many people pass Xepon when travel from the Mekong plain to Vietnam by bus but almost nobody knows what they exactly are passing.

Even someone is interested in the area, they hardly find travel information about it. English Wikipedia describes Xepon only as a place on the map of the Vietnam War. Google Maps has only three panoramas in the whole Xepon district. Searching images on Facebook with using Lao script brings not much either. Booking.Com doesn't offer hotels there.

So, observations I made during a month+ stay in June 2023 can be helpful to a traveler. Here, I will try to summarize what Xepon is and what it can suggest to a traveler.

Xepon, Laos on Google Maps

General Characteristics

Xepon (Sepon, Tchepone) is a tiny town by the road from the Laotian city of Savannakhet to Central Vietnam. This is an uncomfortable dirty place the whole life of which is centered around the highway and passing Vietnamese truckers.

Xepon's central intersection, the highway from Vietnam crosses the market street

However, we do not travel to stay clean and comfortable forever but to explore! 😎 Moreover, if you mentally fence yourself from garbage and unpredictable mongrels on the streets, you can perfectly settle down in Xepon. Just because it surprisingly has all needed tourist infrastructure.

A ditch with garbage at the central intersection of the town

It must be said that there is beauty in Xepon too. Many private houses (of the Xepon middle class) are good-looking.

Wooden top and concrete ground floor.

Lovely to my eyes:

It's even prettier in the countryside.

There are a lot to explore there.

But let's move to the practical part first.

Accommodation

First of all, there are several hotels. In June 2023, I paid 80.000 kip (4.5 USD / 150 Thai baht) at Marnisup Hotel while a British couple I met in Xepon told me they were paying 60.000 (3.3 USD) in a hotel that is considered the best in the town, Viengxai Guesthouse. As I know a room with AC can cost 120.000 - 150.000 kip.

Viengxai Guesthouse

The exchange rate of the dollar at that moment was 18,000 Lao kip for a dollar; 1 Thai baht cost around 530 Lao kip at that period.

Marnisup Hotel

My 4.5$ room was spacious, had a table and a chair, and was equipped with an attached bathroom. Everything was relatively new, including the mattress. And no bed bugs! Those who have traveled in Laos know that Vientiane, for example, is full of these insects.

As I know, every (or almost every) hotels in Xepon has Wi-Fi (and every time it's bad Wi-Fi).

Another Xepon hotel, Alisa Guest house, announces having WiFi. They are all not listed on booking websites

Banks and ATMs

There are two banks at the highway in Xepon.

Agricultural Promotion Bank. This is where I exchanged US dollars (1 time) and Thai baht (3 times) - always good rates and very nice employees. I tried to withdraw money with my visa bank card but it didn't work.

Joint Development Bank. They offered me an awful rate of baht-to-kip exchange. Since then I never visited that bank. However, I withdrew money from their ATM when the ATM of Agricultural Promotion Bank didn't work.

Exchange rate of Agricultural Promotion Bank: https://www.apb.com.la/

Exchange rate of Joint Development Bank: https://www.jdbbank.com.la/en/exchange-rate/

Both banks don't work on Saturday and Sunday.

You can find all the mentioned objects on my custom map of Xepon

If you don't have Lao kips, many restaurants will accept Thai baht ("as an exception"). It could be they can accept Vietnamese dongs as well but I never tried.

When withdrawing money from an ATM, note that the maximum withdrawal amount is low in Laos. For example, in case of Agricultural Promotion Bank it's 10,000,000 kip per day and maximum 2,000,000 at once (source).

Also, if ATMs in Xepon suddenly don't work (out of cash, for example), you can try ones in Phin Town (on Google.Maps), one hour to go by bus from Xepon. Phin is at the highway from Xepon to the provincial capital Savannakhet so there are many buses daily on that road both ways.

Restaurants

There are many, especially along the highway (which simultaneously serves as the central street of the town). Surprisingly, you can even go out to eat after 8 pm. My favorite place was a restaurant of Thai-Lao food with Thai karaoke; a cozy place. I was there almost every day, here: https://goo.gl/maps/DydT4FsN8hyCdhRv6

That restaurant. At night, it glows with the blue and purple neon

I paid 30.000 kip (1.7$, 57 baht) for a fried rice with chicken (khau pad gai in Thai), a large portion, plus a fried egg sometimes and a small bowl of broth were included. But it depended on the day...
They don't speak English but they have a menu (in Lao with unclear images and outdated prices). The last remark isn't critics actually - anything in Xepon is inconvenient so a bad menu isn't that much bad in this non-touristy town.

People

Attitude towards a white foreigner is benevolent.

When you are walking along the street, kids, teens, and sometimes adults can say hello to you in Laotian, sabaidee.

Sometimes, they can ask you to take an image of them - read my post Faces of the Xepon Town, Laos.

Street vendors can slightly overcharge a foreigner and sell rot. But most people are honest.

Xeponites don't know English and a sort of don't want to know. At shops and market, they speak Lao-Thai so my super basic knowledge of Thai helped a lot - to understand and to be understood as well as to make good impression on people. Knowing Thai numbers is super helpful in Xepon and generally in Laos.

Dogs

There are many mongrels in Xepon. It's good on the highway - dogs never barked at me there. As for other streets, depends on a street but anything is possible.

Dogs make Xepon uncomfortable.

I ended up walking with a bamboo stick everywhere.

Shops

There is at least one 24h shop in Xepon!

Imitation of 7-11 but the choice of goods is 10 times less. Still that's great.

There is another very late shop right in front of Thai karaoke.

Generally, the choice of goods is very bad at Xepon convenience stores.

There is one bakery (called Bon Bakery) at the highway with several buns. They cook bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) until the early afternoon. Here: https://goo.gl/maps/n4kpuFRpRUDuFxii8 You can buy French bread (usually until the afternoon).

Bon Bakery at the market quarter. The quarter looks awful but the shop itself is neat inside

Market

Early Morning Street Market

In the morning, there is a crowd of village vendors in streets around the market quarter. When I say the market quarter, I means all the roofs around this market building: https://goo.gl/maps/jBTcaJwA8KNDHw6V8

Fresh vegetables, street food, fruits, etc. Picturesque. Many women from villages, partly in traditional clothes.

Market street in the afternoon

Day Market

This is where the official day market is https://goo.gl/maps/FvJcNMxPG5aJsvwx9 Fruits, vegetables, meat of all sorts until 2-3 pm.

Prices for 1 kg of usual fruits like mango or Thai melon is around 15.000 kip (around 1$). They often sell a pack of mangoes, a bit less than 1 kg, for 10.000 kip. There are some rotten mangoes every time. 😃 But Thai melons (yellowish with the watermelon type of stripes) were exceptional.

From time to time, they sell wildlife there. I saw a killed huge flying squirrel with her several dead kids covered with flies, a dead giant squirrel, a living macaque in a cage.

Clothes Market

Go inside the market quarter or walk in from the highway into it. There are many basic shops with flip-flops, T-shirts, shoes. I even bought shoelaces there (I accidentally flushed away my old ones into the toilet during washing the shoes 😁). They asked 50.000 kip - 2.8$ - the seller knew her work. 😁

Night Food Market

It works around 8 pm for sure, starting probable from 6 pm, not sure. It's located right next to the tiny bus station here: https://goo.gl/maps/96vrtAkhxdmWsPdd8

They sell fried chicken, boiled eggs and corn, sometimes there is a stall with fruits. Sellers look like villagers. Selling spoiled food to a Vietnamese trucker or a foreign traveler isn't rare there.

Transportation

They have a bus station in Xepon, with even a (small sign) in English - "Bus Station". It's here: https://goo.gl/maps/qfHy3Smy8fhj9xpd9

There are many songthaews and buses to Savannakhet there since early morning but don't think they have a strict timetable.

I paid 100.000 kip for a trip on songthaew to Savannakhet, around 3.5 hours.

Of course, you can reach Phin Town on vehicles heading to Savannakhet as well.

I expected they had local buses / songthaews to Dansavan (Laotian - Vietnamese border, border Lao Bao Town in Vietnam). But as I understood they have only transit buses from, for example, Savannakhet. One of such stopped at the opposite (to the bus station) side of the street around 8:30. It was a sleeping bus and they asked me 50.000 kip for a trip to Dansavan. We arrived in an hour to Dansavan bus station https://goo.gl/maps/59ihpPXj3H2ZCmxa9, from where I had a motor taxi for 10.000 to the border. Returning to Xepon from Dansavan bus station cost the same 50.000 kip.

If you need to go to Hue or Danang (Vietnam), you should take a transit bus going from Vientiane or Savannakhet - ask when at Xepon bus station.

At Xepon bus station, they have a songthaew to Vilabouli / Viraboury (LXML Copper and Gold Mine) for sure. But I don't know when and how many.

I wanted to visit Mouang Nong but nor bus station employee neither bus drivers could say if there was a bus to Mouang Nong.

I asked the same question a guesthouse in Mouang Nong on WhatsApp but they didn't answer me at all (although the message was received and read).

Actually, a good place to find a bus to Mouang Nong is the provincial center, Savannakhet. You won't see songthaews at the Savannakhet bus station but, as learnt recently, there are plenty of them at Savanxay Market in Savannakhet, all following to small places like Xepon or Mouang Nong: https://goo.gl/maps/2X7Zs8CAsqPX7JBV9

What to See

I won't tell about Xepon attractions here since I posted enough about this previously, follow links below to learn more.

1/ Banghiang River waterfall and rapids. Read my posts:

2/ Banghiang River life: boats, fisherman, reminders of the Vietnam War. Read my posts:

3/ Potentially Dong Phou Vieng National Bio-Diversity Conservation Area

I didn't explore this. If you manage to cross the Banghiang River (there is no bridge there), you can potentially find something interesting on the opposite wilder shore that is part of Dong Phou Vieng National Bio-Diversity Conservation Area.