Bolaven Plateau

Since we still don't ride motorbikes ("just rent a motorbike!"), we decided to go on a one day tourist tour in a minivan in order to see the main attractions of the region east of Pakse. On yesterday's programme: waterfalls, coffee/tea plantation, villages. The two first were nice - especially the 120m one or the one in Tad Lo where we definitely understood why many backpackers choose to linger - and Claire loved the espresso she tried at the plantation! The village however was somehow quite disturbing. We had no guide, so the driver just told us to leave the van in two different villages (traditional for one thing or another) with no more explanation. So you have a bunch of tourists walking around the village, watching people living, taking pictures. We felt pretty uncomfortable as if we were in a human zoo...

Today was a bus day. The local bus is stopping all the time for various reasons, as expected, but we were happy to find out that there is air-con, each passenger has his own seat and they played Transporter 1 & 2 between karaoke videos. Although the movies were synchronized in Lao, Karsten was happy enough, as the transporter still kicks ass!

What we didn't expect were the 10 hours total it took, the stops for up to one hour for no apparent reason and tons of women swarming the bus with eggs of all sorts, fruits and half a chicken on sticks.Read more