Pakse, Bolaven Plateau, Champasak

So, after Thakhek we had once again a bus ride of several hours to arrive to the capital city of southern Laos - Pakse. We got ourselves accomodation and headed out to rent motobikes for the coming days. On top, we received tons of useful information about the plateau and the waterfalls from the rental shop. You can either do a big loop which takes 4-5 days or a small loop for 2-3 days. As we were running short in time (yes, that is possible ;)), we decided to do the short loop only and have two extra days to explore close-by Champasak and do a coffee workshop in Paksong.

The next morning we had to realize that the place we had stayed for the night was full of bed bugs. Interestingly enough, only Moni was bitten and that was why we were first not sure if it really was bed bugs. We did some research and found out that it is perfectly possible that only one out of two persons sleeping in the same bed gets bitten by the bugs. The other explanation was that only 70% of all people react to bed bug bites and 30% don't. So might as well be that Alex is resistant to bed bugs (which is not a bad thing...). For Moni it was the first time in her whole career as a backpacker (since 2007) that she got bed bugs, so we guess "it was about time" ;).

In any case, we had some good cream against the itchy bites with us and set off to see some waterfalls on the Bolaven Plateau.
Our first stop was Tad Phasouam, a nice waterfall, but not too impressive yet.
Our second stop was the coffee farm of Mr Vieng to get a cup of local Laotian coffee.
It was there that we met Rita and Gonzalo (alias Loz) as well as Timo whom we would spend the next couple of days with. Rita and Loz were Portuguese (from Porto), a hillarious combination of a couple, and Timo was a sweet young Swiss guy (from Lucerne).

After a nice and very strong cup of coffee, all 5 of us headed to the next site on the loop: a Buddha statue amidst some giant trees. A short stop for pictures, not more and we drove on to the little village of Tad Lo which got its name from the famous waterfall closeby. We got ourselves a little, basic bamboo bungalow  for about 6€ with a balcony, a hammock and view on the river.
As Moni was by that time unfortunately tortured by severe stomach cramps, she stayed behind while Alex explored the two waterfalls around the village: Tad Hang could be heard and seen from our bungalow and just a bit above was the more mighty Tad Lo waterfall.
When Alex came back, Moni had more or less recovered and our neighbors had moved in - Rita, Loz and Timo ;). We had dinner together and dicussed our plans for the next day. It was a nice evening and a very funny group.

So on our second day of the Bolaven loop we had the probably biggest chocolate banana pancake ever for breakfast and then the two of us went to see Tad Hang and Tad Lo by motorbike as Moni had not seen them yet. We however caught up with the others quite soon and met them in a little tribal village in the hills between Tad Lo and Paksong. This village was home to famous (at least in the area) Captain Hook who has a small coffee plantation and runs informative tours around the village. We had a cup of coffee, freshly grounded in a huge mortar and served in a traditional bamboo cup (see pictures). The coffee was put into a bamboo cup with holes at the bottom, hot water was poured over it and the coffee was dripping through the filter into another bamboo cup below.

After the coffee break we went on the village tour with Captain Hook, a guy in his roughly late 30ies who had been living and working abroad before. He told us a bit about his coffee plantation, about coffee in general, some crazy stories about his own life and about life in the very traditional village tribe. As we had already experienced in Sapa and Phongsaly before, these tribal people are very superstitious animists believing in lots of spirits and rituals to get rid of them. One story was quite shocking for us: to remove the bad spirits from the village, once a year they take a puppy, tie it to a pole and then each inhabitant kicks the puppy until it is dead because the believe that with every kick they give away one bad thing and the puppy takes all the bad things with it when it dies. Our hearts literally started bleeding and we were immediately thinking of the 3 cute little puppies we had just been playing with before, thinking "Will one of you be next?" :(((.

After the village tour, we headed on and passed Paksong, the coffee capital of the area (we were to return there the next day for a coffee workshop) and drove to Tad Fane, the highest and most impressive waterfall on the plateau. The waters of this mighty cascade fall down the cliff for a good 120 meters and you can only see them from a viewpoint on the opposite side. After a late lunch we wanted to see to the next waterfall closeby, Tad Yuang, which was supposed to be more accessible with even a small pool to swim in below the falls.
However, just as we got on our motorbike, a massive cloudburst came down on us and we decided to head back straight to Pakse instead. The rain was so strong that Alex could barely see anything with all the water in his face which was quite a challenge since the road was full of more or less nasty potholes. One pothole he really did not see and we fully hit. You should have heard Alex scream when he realized he cannot brake or manoeurve the bike around it and Moni clinging to Alex as tight as possible. We were lucky and it was one of the less nasty potholes so we did not get thrown off the bike and soon after that the rain stopped and by the time we reached Pakse we had dried up already.

As a result of the bed bug night, we had decided to change guesthouse and got a much nicer one for less money.
For the next day we had arranged a full day coffee workshop in Paksong with a Dutch expatriate who called himself Mr Koffie. Rita, Loz and Timo joined us as well and we experienced a... let's call it "interesting" day. Mr Koffie was quite a character: very skinny, drinking espresso all day long and always smoking in between 2 cups. He also liked to talk a lot and the opinions about the quality of the workshop were quite controversial, so let's call it again "interesting". Mr Koffie kept serving us espressos too and in the afternoon we roasted our own pack of coffee in an old Asian wok which was quite funny.

In any case, what we did get for our money was a severe caffeine overdose. Sounds funny? Imagining people running around hectically with eys wide open and too much energy to sit still? Not quite! We as well did not know that caffeine can have such strong physical impacts, but we were about to experience it ourselves. After the workshop the 5 of us drove back to Pakse and went for a drink before dinner. Up on the rooftop terrace Alex was the first one to feel sick. He went to the toilet and had to throw up. He looked quite pale and really not good when came back, but he claimed he was fine and we went for dinner. Just as we had ordered food, he had to run to the toilet again and when food was served poor Alex turned pale again and had to go back to the room because he could not take a single bite. Alex was suffering the whole night: puking, diarrhoea, fever, increased heartbeat, dizziness and shivering.

The next morning Alex was only halfway better and we went to see our friends and guess what: poor Timo got equally sick during the night, had to throw up and was not able to move for the entire day.
Just when we decided to say goodbye and go to Champasak to see Wat Phu, a temple from the Angkor times, Moni's stomach got pretty upset as well and she had to rush to the toilet. What a great sightseeing day we had and how creepy we must have looked like: Moni had to drive the motorbike as Alex was to weak, on the way we both seriously thought of stopping to puke on the side of the road (luckily we did not have to at the end) and when we arrived in Champasak after a good hour and - of course - in the midday heat, we parked the bike and collapsed in the shadow. After a while we thought we were ready to see the temple, but after a fews steps we decided we needed yet another break at the local cafe.

After an hour, we finally headed to temple, a very small one compared to Angkor, but once you climbed the steep stairs up the tiny hill (horrbile, just horrible, we had to literally lie down on top) we were enjoying amazing views over the plains, the temples and two nice ponds below.
Given our conditions we stayed long enough to enjoy the view and regain enough strength to climb down again. Then we got on the motorbike and headed back to Pakse. There we found Timo who still felt equally awful and we forced ourselves to go for dinner and eat at least some soup and drink some tea. As 3 out of 4 people got sick (Rita did not drink any coffee), we were pretty sure it was because of the coffee workshop and too much strong coffee. Only Loz survived the caffeine overload without any consequences.

Luckily, the next day both of us felt a lot better because it was again a travel day. We went to our last stop in Laos: the 4000 islands in the the Mekong in the far south of Laos bordering Cambodia.
We took a bus and a boat to arrive on Don Khone at noon for some relaxing days - much needed after what we had been through :). Wait for the next article to read about life on the 4000 islands.

In the meantime we wish you a merry Christmas, a happy new year and all the best for 2017 for you and your beloved ones.

All the best and let us know the latest news from home,
Alex & Moni