Laos Cave Project: Welcome

The Northern Lao Project is a group of experienced cavers organized within the German Federation of Speleology and the Swiss Society for Speleology. We possess a large speleological expertise which is enlarged by cavers joining from our international partner network. We collaborate with government authorities, NGOs and research institutions to document the caves and karst of the Northern provinces of Lao PDR.

We documented in total around 365 caves with 140 km of cave passages. The results are published in 6 books and talks very given at many conferences. Several caves were developed for ecotourism after exploration by the project. The Chom Ong Cave in the Oudomxay province is the most known which opened to public in 2020. A karst database with all cave locations is maintained that can be made available on request.

The project moved its focus to neighboring Myanmar from 2015 and exploration ceased in the Northern provinces. With the recent developments in Myanmar, the project returns and resumes the documentation of karst in caves in the Northwestern provinces of Bokeo and Sayabouli. We are happy assisting any organisation interested in the beautiful karst of the Lao PDR with our data. Please contact us!

Latest News:
February 2024	The documentation of caves and karst resumes after a long break with a two week expedition to the provinces of Bokeo and Sayabouli.
June 2020	The Chomg Ong Cave in Oudomxay province opens for international tourists. The access roads and development as show cave was financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The project provided the original survey and helped for an intitial development as ecotourism site in cooperation with German GiZ. Read the article at Beautiful Chom Ong cave set to open
February 2015	The Laos expedition 2015 is back. See for the report at: Laos 2015
February 2014	The 2014 team returned from a sucessfull expedition with 13.3 km of surveyed caves in Sam Neua and close to the Vietnam border at Phon Thong. Further potential is confirmed west of Sam Neua region.	Team Phon Thong
July 2013	Three presentations and one poster have been given at the International Congress of Speleology 2013 in Brno. Also our 5th BHB book was published on this ocassion. Please visit our article section for the following contributions: - "10 years of exploration and over 100 km of caves surveyed in Northern Laos" - "The development of Chom Ong cave as ecotourism destination in Northern Laos" - "Biospeleological research in the Lao PDR" - "Speleological expeditions to the Shan plateau in Myanmar (Burma)"

Last update: January 2024