After spending a week being sick in Vientiane, we are finally able to leave the capital to go to Pakse. Pakse is the capital of the Champasak province, built by the French in 1905. People come here to get to the Bolovens plateau, but there is absolutely nothing to do in the city.
One of the main agricultural region of Laos, the Bolovens plateau is home to many rice fields, tea plantations, banana trees, leeches but it is mainly known for it’s coffee. We plan on discovering this region by renting a motorbike for a few days. There are also plenty of waterfalls that we will go see, and we are super excited to go swim in them because of the super heavy heat these days.
The different travel guides, and even our friend Marie who came here last year, told us that the temperatures on the plateau are pretty low, at least 20 degrees less than in Pakse, and it can drop at night. Indeed the highest point of the plateau is 3,280 ft above sea level. All these people were dead wrong, we were so hot during the 4 days. The very last night the temperature dropped to a nice 68 degrees, but before that we never had temperatures bellow 86 even at night. The temperatures in Pakse for example were well above 100 degrees.
Before leaving for our road trip we decide to stay the day in Pakse to work on the itinerary. We read that there was an excellent French bakery in town, so of course we stopped by for breakfast and get delicious baguette with homemade jam!
We go to rent our motorbike with a Belgian who has been living in Pakse for quite some time, and we read a bunch of great reviews about his service. The evening before leaving he offers a quick briefing about the loop and gives us plenty of recommendations about activities, restaurants, where to sleep etc…
Long story short there are two options to discover the Bolovens plateau :
The short loop that goes past the main attractions of the region, this is also the more touristic route, as it is paved all the way.
The longer loop is 100 miles longer than the short loop, and goes through some dirt roads. The big advantage of this loop is that there is no public transportation in some areas, and many tourists only have time for the short loop so this means less tourists on the roads and at the sites.
You can easily imagine that we chose the second option. Apparently the long loop also goes through the more beautiful part of the plateau, according to Yves, the Belgian renting us the motor bikes. But there is also a dangerous portion where attacks against tourists were reported. He suggests to find other people on the road and ride with them during the more dangerous day of the trip. No worries, I am sure we will find nice people to travel with!
Day 1 – Pakse to Tad Lo
The next morning we pick up our bike at 9 am and start our 4 day road trip and in total a little over 186 miles.
Getting out of the city is a lot less chaotic than getting out of Chiang Mai during our last road trip in Thailand. We are quickly in the middle of the countryside.
The landscape isn’t super pretty, very dry and a lot of fields are burnt. The side of the road is often full of trash…
Tad Phasuam waterfall
We stop at a first waterfall, Tad Phasuam.
Here the nature is lush and we see plenty of palm trees.
The waterfall is pretty but unfortunately we can’t swim in it. On the other hand there isn’t a tourist in sight.
Visiting a coffee plantation at Mr Vieng’s
We continue our route to Mr Vieng, who owns a coffee plantation.
We couldn’t complete the loop without stopping by one of these plantations and of course taste some local coffee.
We actually start by the tasting, and the coffee is really excellent.
Then we start the guided tour of the plantation with Mr Vieng himself.
The plantation started 25 years ago but he took it over only 3 years ago. On top of coffee beans, he cultivates cacao, manioc and peanuts. He even opened a guesthouse.
He first explains the 3 types of coffee beans that are cultivated on the plateau : Arabica, Robusta and Liberica. He shows us the trees where the beans grow and tells us how different the trees of the 3 types of beans are. The bean starts green, and then turns red, which means they are ready to be picked before rotting and turning black.
We won’t go into all the details of the process of making coffee like Mr Vieng did with us. But it was super interesting!
We leave the plantation late in the morning and drive to Tad Lo, village where we will spend the night.
Tad Soung waterfall
Before going to find a guesthouse we stop at the Tad Soung waterfall, that is unfortunately a little dry at this time of year. The view from the top is OK, but nothing spectacular overall.
On our way to the village we drive by a few cows, this will become more than common during our road trip.
Tad Lo village
We arrive at the Fandee guesthouse, owned by a French guy, where we have a nice little bungalow with a hammock overlooking the garden.
And for lunch we are surprised to see that they offer sandwiches with French paté. You can’t imagine how happy we are to eat some paté after 8 months on the road!
We have all afternoon to visit Tad Lo, tiny village with a relaxed vibe and known for it’s 3 waterfalls.
Tad Hang waterfalls
After having seen the first ones before lunch, we decide to go to the second ones Tad Hang, where we see plenty of locals swimming or taking their daily shower.
So we decide to join them because it is so hot outside. These waterfalls are a lot prettier than the ones we saw this morning. And the water is nice and cold, perfect for these temperatures. There are no tourists around and the locals look at us a little puzzled, wondering what we are doing here. Some even come over and ask to take pictures with us! A great moment.
We won’t even go to see the last waterfall because swimming in this one feels so good. But also because it is near this last waterfall that everyday at 4:30 pm, an “elephant bathing show” is organized by a nearby hotel. This spectacle for tourists is pretty sad, indeed when we passed the hotel this morning we saw the elephants chained in the sun, and they are only set loose for 15 minutes a day so tourists can watch. This type of activity doesn’t really feel right so we decided not to go.
We prefer to relax and take advantage of our nice empty waterfall.
We get back to the guesthouse late in the afternoon, and sit on the patio drinking beer. The family running the guesthouse of course lives on site. So the patio we are sitting on is also the family’s living room. Meaning we are sitting with the family and at one point Maider even has to babysit the baby while the mother serves the clients.
We then spent a great evening with a French mother and daughter who are traveling around Laos together for a month.
Day 2 – Tad Lo to Tad Houa Khone
Once again we are waken up by the roosters and grab breakfast before heading to a village 10 miles away, where lives an ethnic group that we forgot the name of.
3 hour visit in an Animist village with Mr Hook
This village is pretty particular. Contrary to most of the Lao villages that are Buddhist, this one is Animist. Which means they believe in the spirits. Every decision is taken by the guru or the shaman that call to the spirits to find the answer.
Here the people don’t know how to read and write and they don’t even speak Lao. They have a language specific to their village.
In this village lives Mr Hook, who offers guided tours in English.
Mr Hook is a 32 year old man who left his village to go study (in that regard he reminded us a lot of our guide Hon we had for the trek in the jungle in Luang Namtha).
When he was 8 years old, and then again at 13 his parents chose him a wife to marry (this is typical in the village, the reason being that if the parents die young they want to make sure that their sons are married to a good family) but he refused preferring to go to school.
He leaves to study in Laos and in Bangkok where he will learn how to speak English, until his parents call to tell him that he must come home because his grand mother is about to die, and he should come to say goodbye.
This will happen to be a complete lie and just an excuse to make him come back home. When he comes back, his parents leave him with an ultimatum, either he marries this new wife they chose for him, or he is rejected from the family and banned for life from the village.
Because family is very important in his culture he decides to drop out of college to marry this women he doesn’t know and moves back to the village.
Unfortunately things will get worse from here, indeed the guru hears from the spirits that Mr Hook didn’t respect the rules of his village and his religion. And that is true since Mr Hook had sex before marriage, and worse with women outside his ethnic group, and even worse with women that weren’t Lao. His punishment was rough and his family had to sacrifice many animals to please the spirits. Now he isn’t allowed in anyone’s homes and isn’t invited to any of the village’s ceremonies for all the bad he did.
He tells us this story with no emotion, probably because he told it many times already, or probably because he lost all emotion a while ago.
He tells us about the customs of this village that seem unreal for us. Here men can marry as many women as they want. The first one is always chosen by the parents, but after that if they are rich enough they can choose other wives. Because of course here you don’t propose, you simply pay the women’s family to have the right to marry her. Basically all the women are bought (the price is usually of one water-buffalo, which is also the price of a motorbike…). Which means the families can be pretty large especially knowing that a family always lives under the same roof. There are 23 families in the village today, for about 700 people. Since each family lives in a single house, it means they are on average 30 to live in the same house. And we saw these houses, that are NOT big…
The weddings here start very young, at 8 years old. Mr Hook told us about a 20 year old man who just bought himself a new wife… who is only 8 years old.
Here there are no doctors or nurses or dentist, if you are sick you go see the guru. He is in charge of treating you, with a mix of prayers, sacrifices to the spirits and plants and herbs that he grows in town. Mr Hook shows us some of these plants that are used against headaches, nausea or back pain. He admits he doesn’t know about all the plants because his uncle (who is the village’s guru) refuses to tell him by fear that he we repeat everything to the evil tourists.
Actually you can wonder how he is even allowed to do these tours. The solution is actually simple, the money he makes from these tours is used towards the village and improving the quality of life.
We spent 3 hours with him and other tourists that came to visit the village. And we wouldn’t have the time to talk about all the mind blowing stories he told us. For us, we went there with an open mind, not judging their way of life, but it seems pretty insane that in 2019 people still live this way. Mr Hook clearly told us that he wasn’t happy, but at least he is with his family and by sharing his story he is able to help his village by financing a school and different initiatives to bring better living conditions to his village. This way he has a purpose in life, and we can only admire him for doing this.
We leave Mr Hook to get lunch in a nearby village.
And get back on the road to Tad Houa Khone where we will spend the night. This is where we officially leave the short loop to grab the long loop. Which means there aren’t many tourists any more.
Visit of a silk worm farm
In the afternoon we stop at a farm that cultivates silk worms and also has tea and pepper plantations.
When we arrive there is a man who doesn’t speak a word of English who simply hands us a booklet so we can do a self guided tour of the farm.
The farm produces tea and silk, but also pepper and spirulina.
We walk through the different plantations and read about the way they cultivate all these different things. Here all the work is done by hand : removing the weeds, harvesting and plantation. All of this while including the local population in the sustainable project. The Lao employees are trained in all these fields and the local villages are given all the necessary raw materials to cultivate silk worms by themselves, that the farm then buys back and extracts the silk. The silk is then weaved in Vientiane to make scarfs and other items.
We end our visit with a delicious hibiscus tea that they grow on the premises.
We then drive to Tad Houa Khone, another waterfall.
Night in tents
Right next to the entrance is P&S Garden where we will spend the night.
Here we will sleep in tents with a view on the river. A very nice setting between the river and the lush green vegetation. The only other guests are a retired English man who has been traveling for years around Asia, and an Italian couple who speaks fluently French.
After leaving our stuff in the tent we run to the waterfall for our daily swim. When we arrive the waterfall is full of local children. They all watch us carefully as we enter the water. They are all super excited and try to talk to us, even though it is really hard since none of them speaks English and once again our Lao hasn’t improved. We understand at some point that the kids want Matt to jump with them from the top of the waterfall. So he follows them and jumps a couple times in the deep water, the kids are thrilled and we spend a great time with them.
We spend the evening at the restaurant of P&S Garden (only restaurant around), with the Italian couple and the English man.
Before going to bed we all agree to leave together tomorrow morning to get to the 7 waterfalls of Tad Tayicsua. Indeed this is the portion of the loop that can be a little dangerous, where attacks on tourists have been reported, so it is safer to travel as a group.
Day 3 – Tad Houa Khone to Paksong
A nice sunrise awaits us the next morning and we leave around 8:30 am to the waterfalls.
This is where the road gets a little more tricky. After a few miles of paved roads we have to drive on dirt roads for about 20 miles. We pass only very few villages, and the few we do, children are playing and waving at us with huge smiles. Hard to imagine we can get attacked on this road but we are never too safe. We don’t stop to take pictures and drive directly to the waterfalls.
The 7 waterfalls of Tad Tayicsua
We arrive without any issues at the waterfalls and are pleased to see that we are the only tourists around. Barry (the English man) stayed behind to bird watch. So it is only the 4 of us with Dimitris and Giulia.
Tad Tayicsua is the name given to a series of 7 different beautiful waterfalls and probably to most amazing landscapes of the Bolovens plateau according to Yves. And we totally agree.
It is 10:30 am when we go hike to find these 7 waterfalls. We quickly understand that we will only be able to see 3 or 4 if we want to get back on the road in the afternoon. It is possible to sleep here tonight but we would rather continue and sleep a little further.
It is already very hot outside and we start a pretty difficult hike through the jungle. Before leaving we had the good idea of taking a photo of the map of the trails because here Maps.me is of no use, and there is of course no signage on the way.
We get to waterfall number 4 first. This one is considered to be the most beautiful of the 7 waterfalls.
We then continue towards waterfall number 5. A very steep descent is in front of us, so we know that the way back up is going to be tough.
But the nice thing about this waterfall is that we can go for a swim. So without waiting we put our swimming suits on and dive in the water all 4 of us. We spend a great time, alone in the middle of nowhere.
On our way back up we see a pretty big snake. Maider becomes paranoid and watches every single step. We see Barry on the way back up and we will see him again at lunch.
For us time to go see waterfall number 3. Here we arrive at the top of the waterfall, and not at the bottom like we are used to. Pretty impressive to see it from this angle.
From here, according to the map, there is a trail along the river that brings us to waterfall number 2. The trail becomes harder and harder to follow, we see many different waterfalls but they look nothing like waterfall number 2 should look like.
We hope we are not lost but we continue along the trail, until we finally find it. This waterfall is lost in the middle of the jungle and it is beautiful. Each new waterfall we discover is magical.
We saw 4 of the 7 waterfalls and we are starting to get really hungry. From here there is supposed to be a trail that brings us directly back to where we started. But we don’t see any trail. In front of us just lays a huge wall of vegetation. When we look closer we see that there are two ladders towards the top of this wall. So we understand that the trail must be there somewhere.
Off we go almost rock climbing up to the ladders. We try to hold on to anything we can and try not to slip on this dry ground, thank God it didn’t rain recently. We finally climb the ladders and get to the top in absolutely no time.
We are hot, we are hungry and thirsty but we loved our adventure through the jungle to see all these waterfalls. Our only regret was not bringing a picnic with us to be able to spend even more time down there.
We have a huge meal at the guesthouse and take a moment to rest before hitting the road the 4 of us with Dimitris and Giulia. Barry decides to stay a little longer here.
Tad Alone waterfalls
On the way we stop at another waterfall, Tad Alone, where a restaurant was built at the bottom. The tables and chairs even sit in the water! This fall isn’t amazing so we decide to leave pretty quickly and drive 21 miles to get closer to the waterfalls we will be visiting tomorrow.
Flat tire for our Italian friends
We are still on the dirt road when Dimitris and Giulia get a flat tire. Thankfully we are only a mile away from the paved road and the next village where we can find a mechanic.
Dimitris continues alone on the scooter and we pick up Giulia and drive the three of us on the motorbike Lao-style. We drive past a tiny village where some kids try to help us but it doesn’t work. So we continue on the dirt road. The locals we see all laugh, apparently they don’t see 3 tourists on a motorbike everyday. We finally find a mechanic when we arrive on the paved road.
Night in a Home-stay near Paksong
After that we drive 20 miles to Paksong, village located at 4,200 ft above sea level, and for the first time we are a little cold on the motorbike.
Paksong is where the big and small loop join again. The village isn’t the nicest so we decide to drive a little longer to a home-stay right next to the first waterfall we want to visit the next day.
That was a good decision as we arrive late afternoon and are offered a cup of warm tea. A French family is already there so the owner gives us a big bedroom to share with Dimitris and Giulia, with two large mattresses and for only $3 a night. Perfect.
Here the shower is Lao-style, meaning we have to pour a bucket of water over our heads. It still feels great, after spending the day on dirt roads and hiking through the jungle we feel super dirty. Once again we spend the evening the 4 of us together.
Day 4 – Paksong to Pakse
We start our last day of the road trip together. For breakfast we have an omelet and some homemade coffee. Awesome!
We head to our last waterfalls of the road trip. And quickly realize we will not be alone here. Indeed, on top of being on the small loop, these are only 20 miles away from Pakse, so a lot of tourists come here just for the day.
Tad Yuang waterfalls
We start with Tad Yuang. This 130 ft waterfall is majestic and very popular. We walk down a steep staircase so we can get closer to take pictures.
We don’t stay too long as many tourists start to arrive.
Tad Champi waterfalls
We head directly to Tad Champi where we plan on going for a swim. We thought we were done with dirt roads but we were wrong, we have a mile of crappy dirt road to reach this waterfall. We drive in the middle of coffee plantations.
Once we arrive the panorama is beautiful, lush vegetation surrounds this wide waterfall with a huge natural pool. Only a few locals are here and we are able to swim all alone. The water is a lot colder than all the previous waterfalls we swam in but it feels great. We swim all the way behind the waterfall where there are some tiny caves before getting out. At that point people are starting to arrive and we decide to get back on the bikes.
Tad Fane waterfalls
The last waterfall of the day is Tad Fane. These are two twin waterfalls, that are the highest in Laos. They fall for 400 ft inside a lush jungle. The only way to see them is from a viewpoint at the Tad Fane Resort. You can get even closer to the falls by zip-line. A mile of suspended cables that look pretty amazing but at $40 per person a little too expensive…
We then decide to drive directly to Pakse and grab lunch before dropping off our bikes.
Our Italien friends have pretty much the same itinerary we do over the next few days so we decide to continue to travel together.
After a night in Pakse, we leave the 4 of us to the 4,000 islands, our last stop in Laos.