Communists on Motorbikes (Laos: The Bolaven Plateau)

I arrived in Pakse at the ungodly hour of 6am after a fairly good night's sleep (surprisingly) on the sleeper bus from Vientiane. Pakse is one of those towns that has nothing going for it except its proximity to other cool stuff, in this case the Bolaven Plateau. This is an area to the East of Pakse with lots of waterfalls, coffee plantations and dramatic landscapes. Of course I had no option but to rent a motorbike and see it for myself. Found a travel buddy on the bus to Pakse, met a great kiwi couple at the guesthouse and bumped into Lisa & Kate who I’d traveled with from Muang Ngoi to Vientiane. Small world! Instant dinner crowd right there. Over dinner we discovered that 4 of us have matching Asian Tattoos, which makes me feel a lot better :)

I didn't know this, but Laos is a communist country. I should have guessed, given all the hammer & sickle flags flying on important-looking buildings, see exhibit A:
So we decided we should get in the spirit of things and fly the national flags like good communists, see exhibits B and C:

We got a lot of laughs from locals and travellers alike along the way :)

The Bolaven Plateau can be done in as many or as few days as you like. I'd spoken to some people who'd done it as a 3-day loop which fit quite nicely with my schedule, so we decided to do that. On the first day we rode East from Pakse, turned at a junction at 21km and headed north, destination Tad Lo waterfall. There were lots of people selling pineapples and durian along the road, and when we stopped for a drinks break I bought a whole pineapple and the woman chopped it up so we could eat it.

En route to Tad Lo we stopped at a village called Huay Hun to stretch the legs. As we were walking around, lots of kids called out “Sabai dee!” (hello) from their houses (it’s a game that can go on forever, reminds me a bit of the Japanese after-dinner courtesy battle where everybody wants to give the last pleasantry). We spent a good half hour playing with a bunch of kids in their front yard; at first they were quite shy but over time they came closer. They absolutely love seeing themselves on your camera screen! I even let them take a few shots, I held up the camera and let them look through the viewfinder and push the shutter, and of course they ALL had to have a go :) Matt was climbin trees with the boys and started a game of long-jump with them. After that they pulled out their karate kid moves and even got a bit fresh... after a kick in the ass Matt decided it was time for us to go :P

Continued on to Tad Lo waterfall where we spent the night at a guesthouse right on the water. Accommodation is dirt cheap when you get out of the cities, we paid 40,000 kip between us for this place (that's less than NZD$8).


Went for a nice dip in the waterfall in the afternoon, such a relief after roasting in the sun all day! And the water was cold - what a novelty.

On day 2 we set off or Sekong. Along the way we stopped at Ban Kok Pung Tai, a village of Katu tribe people. Our gueshouse in Pakse does some charity work with this village, and we had picked up a whole lot of school supplies and sports gear to drop off at the village. Unfortunately it was school holidays so there were no kids, but I left the books & crayons with the teacher. To be honest this village gave me the creeps; it was nicely developed and relatively tidy compared to some, but they all smoke tobacco in home-made bamboo bongs. And when I say they all smoke, I mean the children start when they're 2 years old. To them it's normal, but I found it heart breaking. The guide told us the life expectancy in this village was around 40 years. Hmmmm.




The rest of that day was pretty crap - an uneventful ride to Sekong (crap town) in stinking heat and no clouds, I even put my gloves on to prevent my hands burning. We wanted to find the Tad Hua Kon waterfall just out of Sekong, there are supposed to be guesthouses right by the waterfall, but we couldn't find it :( that's not uncommon in these parts - things are so badly signposted you have to be psychic to know where stuff is. Anyway, the skies were clouding over at an alarming rate and the wind had kicked up which means only 1 thing: tropical downpour coming!! And sure enough, within 5 minutes it was hosing down. We continued on to Attapeu, another 50km away, and overnighted there.

On the morning of Day 3 we woke up to even more torrential rain. We'd planned to get an early start, lots of kms to cover including a 71km dirt road right across the middle of the plateau. We were hoping against hope that it wasn't washed out, as that would mean backtracking what we'd already driven. We set off in the pouring rain, but luckily about 10km out of town it stopped raining altogether. It hadn't rained on the dirt road at all, different altitude, and I was pleasantly surprised at the excellent condition of the road. We drove past lots of coffee plantations and more villages (and lots more Sabaidee-ing kids). At 18km we managed to find the turnoff for the most spectacular waterfall on the route - Tad Katamtok. I have better pictures of the waterfall but here's one with me in it.



The dirt road was without a doubt the best part of the ride. It was another one of those places where you feel a million miles from home, and you could be inside National Geographic. It was a tough 71km though, the last 30km or so were very badly potholed and extremely bumpy. We stopped off for a coffee in Paksong, at the end of the dirt road, then continued on back to Pakse, closing the loop. Slept like a log that night!

Next stop: 4000 islands for some R&R before heading to Phnom Penh in Cambodia to meet mum. Can't wait to see her!

And here's just a random photo of me eating a chicken claw:

Until next time!
x ML