Paksé, Champasak and the Bolaven Plateau

I started a superfunny trip, when I decided to travel from Kong Lor directly to Pakse, and from there do a two-day-long scooter roundtrip next day, if possible. After an early morning wake up I needed to catch the only direct travel option to Tha Khaek, and from there a local bus to Pakse.

Travel to Pakse

The direct option at 6:30 am is a tuk-tuk, lasts 5 hours on the dirt road in terrible conditions. Compared to this road, the local roads of my home county in the countryside of Hungary can be considered as recently built superintelligent highways – which are not, believe me. And I guess you still remember: the lao tuk-tuk is a small pickup style car with two benches facing each other in the back. Unless there is a third one in the middle, that kills all the space for the legs, no matter where you sit. The benches on the side have some cushions for comfort, the one in the middle is just a plank. The side benches are the luxury seats, even if you can’t really lay back because if the curve of side. Of course I only had a seat in the middle. I repeat: 5 hours. The guys – if they wanted to – could climb up to the roof to have a seat next to the baggage, but the girls were not allowed. It is dangerous – the driver said – and we are not strong enough to take care of ourselves.

In Tha Khaek I had to wait only 20 minutes before I could sit on the local bus to Pakse. It was heaven after the tuk-tuk. Heaven that lasted for 8 hours. I was a tired when I arrived to Pakse late in the evening, I just accepted that most probably there was no scooter available for my planned excursion, and despite of the horrible conditions of my hostel I fell asleep in a minute.

Champasak

There was no suitable bike available for my 2-3 days trip, so I rented a less reliable one and left for Champasak to check out the Wat Phu temple – that I planned anyway. Right on time – one day before the huge Wat Phu Festival started. I already could feel the effect of it: growing mainly local crowd, huge piles of trash, and four loudspeakers at the corners of the temple with four different music or speeches in competition with each other in terms of audibility. The temple complex is located on the side of a hill overlooking Champasak and the Mekong river. The earliest buildings are from the pre-Angkor era, but most of the ruins are the remains of the buildings built in the 11th century. Unfortunately not much remained and it is clearly visible, that the lao cultural/heritage protection could be developed further. As I was cruising back to Pakse, my scooter kinda pulled me to turn and visit the town of Champasak, but I didn’t stop. Every traveler I’ve met since then and visited the town was in love with it, so if you have the chance to go there, don’t miss it. And believe or not, the time has come, when I didn’t stop at random temples at the side if the road, even when they looked beautiful. I thought this day will never come, but I guess I’m a bit overloaded with temples.

I just stopped at the shore of the Mekong, at a spot where there is a beautiful view of the small islands in the river and there is a driveway to a beautiful new house. I took a couple of photos when an older guy with Irish accent stepped to me asking, if he should take a photo of me. Sean lives here for seven years with his lao wife, whom he met in Thailand when he lived there. He fell in love with a huge tree close to the Mekong at the time, when there was no road here. When the construction work of the new road started, he bought this land to save the tree. Bit by bit he bought new pieces of land, and today he has his brand new hotel and restaurant opened here. He is raising his two super cute kids here and reads endless amount of books on the porch – one of the novels he is reading now is set in Budapest – while his beautiful wife handles the business.

The Bolaven Plateau and the waterfalls

The real purpose of me coming here is to go on a waterfall hunt. Starting from Pakse you can do a 2-3 or 4-5 day long loop, that is ideal to visit many beautiful waterfalls, coffee plantations and some authentic lao villages. I planned the shorter loop just by myself, and I didn’t feel missing something. I spent the first night in the village of Tad Lo. I stopped by two beautiful waterfalls on the way, and at a coffee plantation for a coffee that is said to be the best of the loop. The plateau is the main coffee production site of Laos. The first plantations were established by the French in the colonial era, founding a strong coffee culture in the country. Originally they were growing only arabica in the region, but because of the many coffee diseases a couple of decades ago, most of the plantations switched to robusta.

My accommodation here was a bungalow at the waterfront, with a porch and a hammock, a three minute walk from the Tad Hang waterfall. I’ve spent the afternoon with swimming, gazing at the Tad Lo and Tad Hang waterfalls and sleeping in my hammock. Not too bad.

Swimming in the pool of the waterfalls here is totally okay, but one has to keep in mind, that we are in South Laos, where people are conservative and mass turism did not reach this region yet. It is a good advice to check out what the locals do, and somewhat copy them. Swimming in bikini or shorts is a big NO, all men and women should wear at least t-shirts and shorts when going into the water. Having only swimwear on will make half of the village gather and stare at you – an experience I don’t wish for anyone.

I planned a slow next day visiting the Tad Yuang, Tad Fane, Tad Champi and Tad E-Tu waterfalls, and I have to say, all of them worth a visit. At Tad Yuang you can walk down to the pool and look up this huge cascade – I just can’t have enough of this sight.

Tad Fane is a twin waterfall, the two falls are fed by two different rivers. You can’t get close to them, but there’s a good viewpoint to stare at the beauty of the water falling into the 120 meters deep hole in the lush forest.

Tad Champi is a smaller, three part waterfall, where it is possible to swim in the rather cold pool. Still, the best is that you can walk behind the waterfall without actually dip your toes into the water.

As a closure of the day I visited the Tad E-tu waterfall. I was completely alone enjoying the view. Besides the main waterfall there are two smaller ones as well. It was already getting dark, and most of the people plan to get back to Pakse before dark, so the whole site was for me to enjoy, noone disturbed my peace.

Because I had no intention to return to Pakse for the night. I stayed at a Homestay, about 30 km from the town. Ning is a mom with two kids and is an english teacher in high school. But as her family can’t live on her income, she does other things – besides the weekly 48 hours of teaching – to get some extra money. In the attic of her home she can host travelers on 4 king size mattresses, grows fruits and vegetables, has chickens, and owns two small coffee plantations, managed by her husband. The smaller is just one hectare, three minutes away from the house, the larger is 3 hectares, close to Paksong. She harvested 5 tons of coffee at the smaller, 30 tons at the larger plantation. She sells a part of it to the nearby Dao Coffee Factory, at a price of 3.000 kip per kilo, while she pays 1.000 per kilo to the workers harvesting. This would end up at around 70 million kip income, if she’d sell all her coffee to the factory. This is added to the family budget, next to her 2 million kip per month (240 USD) income, that she gets anyway only when the government has money. Her daughter is in elementary school, but her son (4) is already protesting, he’d rather go with his dad to work on the coffee plantation.

I hopped on my scooter at 6 in the morning to return to Pakse on the road in horrible conditions – they are building the new road that is promised to be ready for the lao new year in April – , returned my bike on time and got on the 8 am bus towards the south.

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Distances – short loop

• Pakse – Tad Lo: 86 km
• Tad Lo – Paksong: 64 km
• Paksong – Pakse: 50 km

Prices

• Kong Lor – Tha Khaek tuk-tuk: 75.000 LAK
• Tha Khaek – Pakse local bus: 60.000 LAK
• Automatic scooter: 80-90.000 LAK/day
• Semi-automatic scooter: 60-80.000 LAK/day
• Room in Tad Lo: from 20.000 LAK
• Homestay: 20.000 LAK
• Tad Pasuam entrance fee: 10.000 LAK / parking: 2.000 LAK
• Tad Yuang entrance fee: 10.000 LAK / parking: 5.000 LAK
• Tad Fane entrance fee: 10.000 LAK / parking: 5.000 LAK
• Tad Champi entrance fee: 5.000 LAK / parking: 3.000 LAK
• Tad E-tu entrance fee: 5.000 LAK