Our scooters

If you are thinking of taking a trip to Laos, you should definitely plan a few days itinerary of the Bolaven Plateau. This lush plateau south of the country, extending from the Mekong River up to near the border with Vietnam, offers truly unique landscapes and encounters. Our experience begins when we rent scooters in the city of Paksè, and from there we head east towards our first stop: Paksong. After only a few kilometers, we get thrown into a charming rural environment: the road is a succession of small villages, bazaars and Buddhist temples. At the first major intersection (National Road 13 with National Road 20) after a drive of several kilometers, we stop for a break alongside some stalls. There we taste exquisite, colorful and fresh fruit; it is here that I eat for the first time Jackfruit, the largest fruit in the world, a must try.

Intersection on the way to Tayicseua

The road now begins to climb gently and after a few kilometers we are attracted by a large sign that invites a detour to visit the Tad Yuang waterfalls. The whole of Laos is rich in fast-flowing streams, but it is here, on the Bolaven Plateau, where you can find the most spectacular ones. A hike, even if a short one, is a must; after visiting the waterfalls, be enchanted by the local bazaars where you can admire the beautiful silk fabrics of the local population.

Driving through the outskirts of Paksè

Finally we arrive at Paksong shortly before lunch, and here we make one of the most interesting encounter of the whole tour. In a small guest house on the main road we get to know Cana, an American girl who, together with other people, pursues an interesting volunteering project aimed at the local coffee producers, gathering them in a cooperative. I really invite you to linger in this magical and welcoming atmosphere. While you enjoy their different types of coffee prepared with art, make sure Cana tells you the story and the reasons of their program. You’ll be impressed.

At Jhai coffee cooperative in the Bolaven Plateau

Personally, it was from her tales that I started to understand the tragedy of the Vietnam War for this country. In nine years, the United States poured on Laos more than 270 million tons of the notorious cluster bombs. Once the conflict ended, the civil population discovered at their own expense and tragically that many of these still unexploded ordnance continue to claim innocent victims, many of which children.

Coffee plantation

We left Paksong and started the most adventurous part of our tour. Driving east, the road becomes less and less busy. We are catapulted in an environment quite different from those seen so far. The road continues to rise to around 1300 mt above sea level, at times looking more like an alpine environment than an Asian one, were it not for the endless coffee plantations. There are forests of pines and conifers on both sides of the road, very few isolated houses and even fewer cars on the road.

We arrive to our final destination almost at dusk, after driving more than 100km. The Tayicseua area is outside of the classic tours organized on the Bolaven Plateau and perhaps thanks to this it is still one of its most wild and unexplored.

Observing the panorama at Tayicseua

We take a dirt road of a stunning red clay through bamboo reeds and isolated villages from which some children peep at us, intrigued by our passage. The view is breathtaking, there are forests everywhere, and in the distance the sound of a river anticipates next day trekking.

We arrive at a guest house, the main wooden building located at the center of a few bamboo huts. The place is mystical. We are welcomed by a nice lady hailing from Vientiane (Laos capital) who, in excellent English, tells us the story and philosophy related to her choice of life in a place so isolated.

Guest House at Tadyicseua

There are only a few guests: some lie on colorful carpets and read, helped only by the light of a gas lamp; other practice meditation and yoga. All around, a wonderful feeling of tranquility, interrupted only by the sounds of the forest. It is already dark when we finish the excellent dinner, and we retire to our cozy hut for the night.

The next morning we leave early for what will be the most adventurous part of our tour on the Bolaven Plateau. We trek down through an easy path that leads towards the roar of a river. The walk that starts there and continues alongside the river offers breathtaking scenery: waterfalls that flow down for dozens of meters until their next stretch, through gorges that offer no end in sight. We are surrounded by forests and large patches of bamboo, with alternating views of the underlying falls. A well-deserved stop allows us to enjoy a cold but invigorating bath in these waters.

One of the many Tadyicseua waterfalls

After several hours of walking, we decide to take the path back, sadly aware of having left behind at least another fifteen spectacular waterfalls. Back to the guest house, we say goodbye to the affable manager and we ride our bike for the return journey. It is after a few hundred meters that I am left behind by our little group of bikers. From the forest suddenly rises a gentle yet noisy wind that completely runs through me. It is not cold at all, but it makes me shiver. I feel as if this magical place is waiving goodbye to me, and in return I make a promise that I will be back.

Working on dagger making

On the way back we stop for a visit to a nice community of daggers and knives makers, most of whom willingly and proudly show us how they work the iron on a coal forge.

We arrive in Paksè at sunset, and after crossing a long bridge over the Mekong River, almost accidentally we enter a road which leads to the top of a hill. There, a huge Buddha statue overlooks the city; behind the statue, the call of the evening prayer come from a temple. It is a worthy ending of an exciting tour.

For a Bolaven Guided Tour, click HERE

Asian Itinerary stayed at Pakse Hotel

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Pakse Hotel logo

PAKSE HOTEL

Street n°5, Bane Watlouang

PAKSE 16000 – LAO P.D.R.

Reservations booking@paksehotel.com

General info@hotelpakse.com or info@paksehotel.com

Web http://www.hotelpakse.com

BOOK A DISCOUNTED ROOM AT PAKSE HOTEL HERE !

Pakse Hotel reception area

Pakse Hotel was the first building constructed under the supervision of Chao Boon Oum, last King of Southern Lao. In 1962, the structure became a cinema and casino and was the heart of life in Pakse, hosting festivals and major events for the entire population.

Totally renovated in 2003, the hotel has a perfect location in the centre of Pakse, within walking distance from the Mekong River, banks, all services, shops and VIP bus station to Vientiane. Also, the international airport is only 3 km away, allowing quick connections to Vientiane, Savannakhet, Luang Prabang, Bangkok, Siem Reap and Ho-Chi-Minh city (Saïgon).

Pakse Hotel room

Pakse Hotel reaches now international standards in terms of accommodation, catering and services. The Lao-French couple owning and running Pakse Hotel since its reopening has mixed the local traditional cultural influences and the French Indochina spirit. The cozy rooms, the roof-top restaurant and its exceptional panoramic view on the whole city, the kindness and availability of the staff will make your stay enjoyable and unforgettable.

Pakse Hotel restaurant and breakfast area

I had a great time at Pakse Hotel; the room was spacious, the bed was comfortable, the staff were all very helpful and welcoming, and the buffet breakfast was delicious. The hotel is in the perfect location, right in the middle of the city, within walking distance of most locations, and if you wake up early enough, you can watch the monks walk by and collect their daily ration of food from the locals.

The restaurant at the top of the hotel is open in the evenings and has a great menu of Lao and French dishes. From the terrace at the 7th floor, the view is spectacular: you can see the Mekong, most of Pakse and the beautiful mountains surrounding the city.

ROOMS: Individually controlled air-conditioning, telephone, free access to Internet WIFI and satellite TV (36 internationals channels in various languages), fridge and mini bar, work desk, individual bathroom with hot water shower, basin and toilets.

Pakse Hotel Le Panorama rooftop restaurant

FOOD: Food is also a priority at Pakse Hotel. Their restaurant Le Patioh de Noy offers an excellent Lao traditional food, as well as Western and Thai specialities. Their roof-top restaurant Le Panorama is the ideal place for a drink on sunset time or for a romantic dinner overlooking the Mekong and the city lights.

TOUR DESK: Wat Phou Travels are offering private and customised tours, that will immerse yourself in this unique Southern Laos experience. All their tours include the service of a private car and driver. Wat Phou Travels also highly recommend the service of a qualified guide to give to our customers the best experience possible. READ MORE HERE !

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One of the most popular areas of Southern Laos is the Bolaven Plateau, home to beautiful waterfalls, fertile soil that hosts many different types of produce including high grade tea and coffee, vast variety of fruits, tapioca, cardamom and rattan, as well as a nice range of tribal communities that still live a simple lifestyle. We did not need to go far to arrange our tour. We had the luck to stay in one of the best accommodation in Pakse. The Hotel Pakse: central, clean and with a colonial touch, managed by a team of Europeans and local people. Wat Phou Travels, with a desk right inside the hotel, advertised the Bolaven Plateau Discovery Tour.

Upon enquiring, a smiling Miss Nang made us relax on comfortable chairs while she explained, in perfect English, what we would be visiting, the price and the duration of the tour. Miss Nang was so thorough in her explanation, and despite being late afternoon, she made a couple of phone calls and voila’, the tour was booked. The morning after was going to be an early rise…

Wat the guide at the Phasuam ethnic museum

We woke at 6,30 and went to have breakfast at the well-supplied buffet from the Pakse Hotel, which is spectacular indeed. At 8am we headed to the reception to meet with our guide for the day, Mr Wat, and off were were in the comfort of his flashy minivan. It was going to be a good 30 minutes trip to the first destination, so we had time to familiarize with our surroundings and to chat wit affable Wat. 40 years of age, and a life spent in the travel industry, with a 5 years spell in an NGO, make Wat a very knowledgeable traveling companion (guide will be the wrong word to describe him). His English is more than perfect, and he is up to date with politics, economics, and he is a lover of history, which suited all our questions about this amazing land and its wonderful people. Wat was a great choice from Wat Phou Travels, which we are told always uses local experienced guides for their exclusive tours of the area.

Tapioca being sliced

We were heading east. Out of the minivan’s windows, a world of small rivers and streams, of banana groves, of villages with stilted shacks and smiling faces waiving at our passage. The views over the mountains and the rice paddies and the coffee plantations were incredible. Piles and piles of coffee berries and tapioca were left drying in the sun. It was like being watching a documentary.

These were the highlights of our day:

Male making a knife’ blade at blacksmith village

1- Blacksmith village – Our first stop was at a blacksmith village along Route 13, where Wat explained the production process. This village comprises various, small family-run factories that produce anything from a jungle knife to a machete. The various road-side stalls expose lots of knives from different shapes and prices, which are for sale starting at 30000 kip.

Women producing the shafts and handles for the machetes at the blacksmith village

The men made the knives’ blades, hammering the steal and putting it into the heat to get the right form. Meanwhile, women were producing the shafts and handles for the machetes with a combination of wood and bamboo. We were shown how these people recycle iron from old explosives left over from the Silent War to do the blades.

What followed was a sad conversation with Wat, who made us aware of the statistics of the Vietnam war, and the fact that USA dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions. These were part of a plan to block traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.

Spirit house at the centre of the Nge village

2- Visit to Phasuam – We then continued to reach Phasuam ethnic museum and Tad Phasuam waterfall, located 33 kilometres north of Pakse. This is basically a mock village where a Thai investor and philantroper has managed to bind different tribal communities together to form a living museum where they present their way of living and their handicrafts. All workers and collaborators in the village are from tribes. Wat was able to explain the different style of houses and helped us meet some of the southern minority people, amongst which Katu, Alak and Ngo. At this ethnic village you also have the chance to stay overnight at a family home-stay.

Ethnic ladies at the village

The majestic and beautiful Tad Phasuam waterfall gets its name from its rectangular room-like shape, as ‘suam’ literally means ‘room’ in Lao. Tad Phasuam waterfall flows all year round, descending across the Bolaven Plateau from the Houai Champi River. This is a great relaxing spot where you can also spend the night at one of the unique tree-top bungalows of nearby Uttayan Bachieng Resort.

3- Mr Vieng – The Bolaven Plateau is home to many tea and coffee plantations, and one of the best places to get to know more about this delicacy is Mr Vieng coffe and homestay. The business is advertised by signs on the main road that read FRESH GROUND COFFEE.

Me at Mr Vieng coffe

It was such a pleasant break, and we arrived right when Mr Vieng and his wife finished removing the fine skin from coffee beans on a heavy and huge wooden pestle and mortar, and were about to start roasting them. We observed carefully as they took out a trusty coffee roasting wok and placed it on the hot coals. The aromatic smell filled the air. This has become a meeting point for visitors to the Bolaven Plateau; several foreigners were sitting on long tables, tasting coffee and chatting.

Mr Vieng in person!

Mr Vieng then took some time to serve us a delicious Robusta coffee straight from his lush plantation of Robusta trees, before taking us to see his collection of moka pot coffee makers. Several of these machines fill long stands inside Mr Vieng kitchen, and were donated to him by clients and friends.

Mr Vieng and his wife also runs a homestay, a Katu ethnic style wooden house on stilts with 4 rooms with window and mosquito nets, and a terrace that boasts tables and hammocks. The perfect place for those who wish to relax in the nature in contact with the coffee farmers and surrounded by coffee trees. It is so quiet and can be cool at night, a great respite from the Laos persistent heat. Mr Vieng can also arrange a coffee trail trek in the village.

Tad Lo waterfall

4- Tad Lo waterfall – Next was the very popular Tad Lo waterfall. Located in Salavan province, this is a popular trekking stopover for travelers. Tad Lo has three waterfalls: one beside Tad Lo village, one a kilometer away upstream, and one further upstream about eight kilometres away. Most of the local community is built up around this area, which has a lake, a village and a few wooden bungalows on the lakeside. Tad Lo waterfall is not that majestic, but it is wide and quite impressive, a nice place to spend some time. We had lunch in the unassuming local restaurant by the waterfall, where all tour minivans seem to converge, before making our way to the next destination.

Phasuam ethnic museum traditional house on stilts

5- Nge community village – A visit to an authentic village of the minority Nge group included some time at ease to explore the village. A group of kids of different ages formed right after we entered the village square, and followed me throughout the whole visit. Some where shy, while others asked for money and pens. We were strongly advised by the guide not to give money to kids, who would easily learn a begging attitude. Instead, it is always better to find out who the village chief is, and make a collective donation that can benefit the whole village. If you plan this trip, it is also a good idea to take small soaps, toothbrushes, shampoo etc for the villagers, who seemed very poor and filthy.

Mother and child at Nge village

Bolaven people produce fabrics, and work mainly on the agricultural sector. There were traditional houses, the meeting pavilion and spirit house that as per tradition was in the center of the square, hand carved caskets being produced and coffee left to dry in the scorching sun. Adults carried on their daily life without much concern about us passing by their houses, where there were derelict bicycles, satellite dishes used as clothes hangers and old household appliances left to rot and rust. After the full round of the village, I bough a packed of chips for each kid at the local shop and distributed to them for their immense happiness.

Tea and coffee tasting

This was not the only stop in a ethnic village. During the day, we visited similar communities of Alak and Katu people, where Wat told us a bit about their culture and traditions. Most are animistic, while some follow the Christian religion, introduced by the French over 100 years ago.

6- Coffee and tea plantation – this was a quick stop, since we had already visited Mr Vieng early in the day; still, the farm was great, with lots of different fruit and herbal plants, including the famous green tea plant, introduced to Laos back in 1973 by the Vietnamese. We learned that the Bolaven Plateau is an ideal place also for growing tea, since it is a fertile plain and the tea plants grow best at altitudes between 600m to 1200m above sea level.

The impressive Tad Fane twin falls

7 Tad Fane waterfall – The impressive Tad Fane twin falls is one of the most spectacular waterfalls of Laos and it falls like a thunder about 120 meters down a steep cliff and into a gorge. The idyllic surrounding is spectacular and the jump is so high we could hardly see the gorge from the viewpoint, but we could make out the powerful streams that forms and flows away towards the south. Tad Fane surrounding scenic rainforest is part of Dong Hua Sao National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA), where wild animals like leopards, tigers, elephants and monkeys, as well as 300 species of birds including the hornbill, live.

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The sun light was weakening and Wat was now ready to start the trip back to Pakse along a brand new highway, which we reached at 5pm. Bolaven and the Pakse surrounding is an area where development is indeed visible: huge roads are being constructed, which will eventually link Laos to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

On that day we covered a total distance of around 220 kilometers and spent 9 fantastic hours with Wat, who together with Wat Phou Travels gave us the opportunity to see all of what Bolaven Plateau is famous for.

Wat Phou Travels is specialized in programs and excursions in the South of Laos. It has fixed programs and also offers private and customized tours, only using the service of qualified local guides to give customers the best experience possible.

Read about Wat Phou Travels HERE !

Read about a tour of Bolaven Plateau by scooter HERE

Asian Itinerary was kindly accommodated by Pakse Hotel during their whole stay in Pakse. 

Read about Pakse Hotel HERE !

BOOK A ROOM AT Pakse Hotel AT DISCOUNTED RATES HERE !

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Wat Phou Travels

Created eight years ago, Wat Phou Travels is a travel agency specialized in programs and excursions in the South of Laos.

Wat Phou Travels are offering private and customized tours, that will immerse yourself in this unique Southern Laos experience. All their tours include the service of a private car and driver. Wat Phou Travels also highly recommend the service of a qualified guide to give to our customers the best experience possible.

Wat Phou Travels team is composed of 6 persons, from French and Lao backgrounds, and this diversity allows them to provide the full flavor of Laos, while maintaining occidental standards.

Lots of guests chose Wat Phou Travels for their journeys to the Bolaven Plateau, the temples (Wat Phou and the Royal Path, Phou Assa and more) and the 4.000 islands.

Why choosing Wat Phou Travels ?

• They are a local agency based in Pakse
• They are providing a quality service with an European management
• They are working in relationship with the local population and with our local partners
• They are developing ecotourism based programs
• They are referenced in several  French traveler’s guidebooks
• They are working as a local referent for French travel agencies

Wat Phou Travels is quoted by The Guardian  in an article about tourism in Laos http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/nov/21/laos-what-to-do-in-two-weeks

FOR GREAT ACCOMMODATION IN PAKSE, CLICK HERE

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