Or maybe "Tat" Lo. One was the waterfall and one was the village, I think. Or I might be completely wrong and it's just one or the other, given that they sound the same in Lao anyway (a softly pronounced end consonant, for any linguists reading). What a terrible start to a blog entry. Sorry, I'll get on with it.

Tad or Tat Lo was less than 100km from Pakse, and only took a couple of hours or so to get to. We arrived just after lunch, having also stopped en route to check out what would have been a spectacular sixty to seventy metre high waterfall in the wet season, Tat Suong, but alas was a mere trickle when we got there, albeit a great viewpoint at the top. Tat Lo (I'm going with "Tat") is a wonderfully tranquil place with just a handful of small guesthouses, each comprising of a few bamboo huts in a garden area. A single dirt road, which the guesthouses are on, leads to a bridge crossing over a river, right in front of a wide and multi-tiered, gently cascading waterfall, Tat Hang. And a bit further up the river, a short walk that we made that afternoon, is Tat Lo waterfall. A higher and significantly fiercer version, that tossed clouds of spray over us standing twenty or thirty metres away. And beyond that, up on top, are pools of water intermingling with rocks and river currents, where local villagers were contentedly swimming, washing and fishing.

We watched a group of women, ranging from a young, teenage girl to a couple of elder ladies, successfully complete the task of crossing right over from the far side of the river to the side where we were sitting, all the time giggling and clutching on to each other as they battled currents and deep sections, where the water level rose to well over their waists. We have them a small but well deserved round of applause as they reached us, and then headed back for Beerlaos, food and a game of cards. And an early night, with a longer journey ahead of us the next day.