Bolaven Plateau (13th March 2011)

Wat Luang, Pakse

This morning we’re heading up to the Bolaven Plateau to visit tea and coffee plantations as well as some waterfalls. With Laurens negotiating skills we had managed to create a tailor made trip visiting just two waterfalls as Lauren and Hadleigh had similar thoughts as me about waterfalls, nice to see but not four in one day especially when you know you’re visiting them just so they can fill the day and charge you more! The Bolaven Plateau is at 1000m so ever so slightly cooler and perfect for the tea and coffee growing and tasting.

Tea drying

The center of the coffee plantation

Lauren and Hadleigh on a bamboo bridge

Our final stop was some nice waterfalls and sort of park area where we were supposed to have lunch but the prices were about 3 times what we’ve been used to paying so asked our driver if he can stop somewhere at a roadside cafe on the way back. I think he thought we were mad and tried desperately to change our minds but we managed to convince him in the end and he stopped at the most deserted shack where it took us a good 10 mins to finally find someone who was willing to make us some soup. It is funny these little shack cafes, they’re as basic as they can be and seem to be just an extension of people’s houses but generally they seem quite reluctant to take your money and feed or water you. I’ve noticed though it’s a bit like that everywhere in Laos, no one seems in any great hurry to make money, in the markets and the shops, yet they all seem to have quite a lot of money!

Waterfalls of the Bolaven Plateau

Anyway, our lunch! A common meal at a lot of places is noodle soup and seems the easiest to ask for when there’s no common language! They basically cook the noodles add a little bit of greenery, meat if you’re brave enough, some herbs and spices and then hot water, most likely from the Mekong, and serve it up. When we finally did manage to find the chef she was adamant that she wanted us to have meat with ours but I had already clocked that it was absolutely swarming with bugs, like really really swarming with bugs, I dread to think how long it had been left out, uncovered for! She kept picking it up and showing us and each time she did she then had bugs all over her hands which were then flung all over the ingredients for our lunch! It was very amusing and all of us secretly wondered how long it would be before the effects of our lunch came back to haunt us!

Back in Pakse we managed to negotiate another good deal to get us down to Champasak for our next stop before heading out for curry and beer.

Life on the Plateau










The kitchen on our lunch stop! ;-)