It says a lot about the province that, although its same-named capital city lies roughly at the centre, the road leading to it from Pakse, 125 kilometres away, reaches the town and comes to an abrupt dead end.Vietnam is only 100 kilometres further east, as the crow flies, but this is only good news if you happen to be a crow: there are currently no roads to speak of leading directly east. Instead, a new route has been opened up along route 15b to the north, which now leads all the way to Vietnam. 

Although Salavan holds prospects for tourism in the future, much of the province is still too unexplored to allow travellers to simply wander around and find fun things to do. For now, most travellers only head as far east as Tad Lo, which is 85 kilometres from Pakse and easily accessible by public transport or motorbike. Its a beautiful, tranquil little spot along a series of three waterfalls that attracts a steady trickle of backpackers as well as Laotians on vacation. Those wishing to travel further east will find themselves facing a series of challenges. Among these are a lack of services, travel agents, translators and qualified guides. 

Salavan is a frontier town that echoes in some way an Australian outback town. Hot, dusty, sleepy, with pretty much nothing to offer the casual visitor except for wide, open spaces and quaint rural scenery. 

But its exactly that feeling of being on the edge of a wilderness that gives Salavan its mystique and also assures that for the time being, it will only show up on the travel itineraries of those seeking an off-the-beaten track adventure. If tourism throughout the province opens up, then this will be a crucial base of operations, but until then, it remains a grim backwater. Note that we have been waiting for this day to come for the past decade but aside from the paving of route 15b there's been little progress

If you do drift by here (perhaps you were heading to Savannakhet and got the names mixed up) at least there is a destroyed bridge to travel out to, a decent day market and a pleasant river to wander beside, along with a magnificent horizon -- but that's about it.

The hinterlands giving onto the border with Vietnam hosts hundreds of ethnic minority villages, many with their own distinct language and culture, whose lives have been shaped over the centuries by the tortured history of the region. But whatever travel adventures await there remain locked-up by the lack of roads, so unless you plan to walk or are able to hitch a ride on one of the Laotian government  helicopters, the region is currently quite impossible to access.