Pakse and Bolevan Plato

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I got a night bus from Vientiane to Pakse. It had flat beds and was quite comfortable. Pakse is a sleepy town on the river and is quite nice. Most travelers pass it up on the their way, but I ended up staying 2 nights there before and after the trip to the Bolevan Plato and enjoyed it.
The Bolevan Plato is a highland region east of Pakse and is best explored by motor bikes, so Danny, the English guy I met on the Thai-Lao border and Fanny, a French girl we met on the slow boat to Luang Prabang, rented bikes for 5 days and went on a loop through the Bolevan Plato. The Plato is about 1 km high and is simply spectacular. It's much cooler than the rest of Laos, and they grow coffee and pineapples instead of rice. There are numerous waterfalls to be seen and there are no tourists. The whole region is not developed much, the last part was a dirt road through a dense rain forest with not a village in site. The locals are quite astonished to see foreigners, especially children. but warm up quickly. The kids also shout 'Hello' or ' Sabai Dee' - hello in Lao- as we pass the villages. We came to see one waterfall and spoke to the farmer who owns it for a bit. He's got 10 waterfalls on his property, but has no money to develop them. In fact, the hike to the waterfall we saw is quite challenging and slippery. I ended up slipping and was covered in red mud when we came out of the jungle 😊 The farmer had no drinking water to sell nor any food. He was growing peanuts on his property, so he gave us one bush to munch on. The village was 10 km in the other direction, so we decided to push on.
We came upon a stall on the side of the road selling pineapples. We were hungry and thirsty, so bought one of the pineapples, which the villagers cut up for us. It was amazing and very juicy. The price - just over $1.
The last night, we ended up staying in Pakson - a frontier town. We had a BBQ in a local restaurant and drank some Lao Lao - local moonshine whiskey with some Vietnamese folks who were working in Pakson. They didn't speak any English, but somehow that didn't really matter.
Overall, the bike trip was the highlight of the my Lao trip and I really enjoyed it.
Next stop - Champasak.

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Comments

[richie]

Coffee
Hey Alex how ya been looks like u r having a blast. Did you try the coffee? or are you sticking to Moonshine. LOL

[arctangent]

Yeah, I am loving it. The coffee is actually fantastic here. They drink it really sweat - with condensed milk and it's pretty strong.