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Our pick-up for our day tour of the Bolaven Plateau was at 8am today, so we got up early and went for breakfast as we knew it was going to be a long day! We were the first to be picked up and were soon joined by a German couple, a French man, a Vietnamese girl and a guy who was born in Laos but was brought up in Germany! As you can tell, we can't remember any of their names now! We also had an English speaking guide who sat in the front of the minibus with the driver and explained where we would be going during the day.
The Bolaven Plateau is famous for its cool climate, dramatic waterfalls and coffee plantations, which we would be seeing something of during the day. The soil is very fertile which enables the locals to grow high quality coffee (we can vouch for that - it's excellent!) The first stop of the day was to a small, family-run tea and coffee plantation where our guide showed us around and explained how the tea leaves and coffee beans are harvested. He told us that the plateau has the right climate for growing tea and coffee plants and he pointed out the taller trees, which are grown to provide shade for the smaller plants. There were two women on the plantation picking tea leaves, which they only do twice per month during the dry season so we were lucky to see them in action!
Back at the main building, the guide showed us the equipment used for drying, roasting and grinding the tea leaves. The coffee beans are sold on to other suppliers but the family make their own home brand tea, which we got to taste. The elderly Vietnamese man who is in charge of the plantation is known as a 'tea guru'as he has made tea for so many years! His photo is on every pack of green tea, including the one we bought.
Further along the road, we stopped at another Fair Trade certified tea and coffee sho for another sample of green tea. They also grow peppercorns at this location and I was tempted to buy some but managed to resist - we've still got Kampot in Cambodia to come, and their pepper is meant to be the best....
Next was the first of three waterfalls on our itinerary, the stunning Tad Fan waterfall. It's the plateau's highest waterfall at 120m and has two chutes of water cascading down the cliffs. Our guide explained that the Laos people don't really appreciate this place as they're not interested in things that they can only look at, without touching; our viewpoint was quite far from the actual waterfall, which is too dangerous to swim under.
Then came one of the highlights of the day - a visit to the ethnic village of Bane Kokphoung. On arrival, we were met by one of the villagers who spoke good English and told us his name was Captain Hook! He showed us around the village, explaining that it used to be located on the Laos-Vietnam border but they moved inland tothe plateau during the war. The villagers speak their own language called Katu and live together in large groups, some with up to 65 people sharing a one room house! One man can have many wives and in their culture the man has to provide the dowry to the family of the woman he marries; our guide showed us a huge satellite dish that was given as a dowry to one family! If a man's many wives get along then they all live together as one big happy family, but if not then each wife gets her own 'kitchen' within the house. We saw inside one of these houses that had three separate 'kitchens' - it was one big room with three separate fires, so that the wives can all cook with their backs to one another!
Another tradition that they have in this village is that the people make their own coffins before they die and store them underneath their houses until they pop off. We were shown a few of these simple, wooden coffins - quite spooky! We were also shown the old village school ( a new one has recently been built by a charity) which looked a lot different to Whale Hill! It consisted of a wooden hut with rows of benches inside...and that was it. Our guide told us that education isn't really valued in the village, particularly for girls, who usually only attend school until the age of eight. Boys are more likely to attend for longer and occasionally go on to high school if they can afford it - the only help they get from the government is for their school uniforms.
The villagers all smoke something called a water pipe, which we were offered but we politely declined (which we later found out can be considered disrespectful - oops!) and children in the village also smoke it from the age of 4...There were plenty of pigs and chickens roaming around the village but they don't kill them to eat regularly. Instead, they are saved to be sacrificed on special occasions or if the villagers do something to upset the spirits; our local guide talked about their beliefs in both good and bad spirits. It was a fascinating visit and we learned a lot more than we have in other villages we've visited which have turned out to be sales opportunites.
Next stop was Tad Lor waterfall and our lunch break. Over our food, we chatted to the others on the tour, mostly about the village we'd just visited but also about the Laos/German guy's views on his country after spending so long in Germany - it's definitely a different place to the one he left and is still changing every year as more and more tourists descend.
After lunch, we walked down to the waterfall over a very dangerous looking bridge that was under repair! There were signs at each end that we presume said 'No Entry' or something similar, but our guide talked to one of the workmen there and he waved us across - we all managed to get to the other side after carefully avoiding the gaping holes in the middle of the bridge! It felt good to wash the dust off our feet in the cool water of the falls before we had to cross the death-trap bridge again to get back to the minibus.
On our way back to Pakse, we visited two more 'villages'. One was a shopping opportunity at a 'weaving village' - basically a single shop where women were selling scarves and demonstrating how they made them. The second village was almost like an open-air museum. Inside were many different styles of houses demonstrating the different tribes and religions within Laos. Our guide described the features of each house and there were people there pretending that they lived there (Dave checked - they all go back home to theier real villages at the end of the day!) Very strange...a bit like Beamish! Our favourite 'character' was an old man in traditional dress who demonstrated an incredible range of home-made musical instruments to us - very funny!
Just after that, we were all quietly watching a woman weaving when Dave spilled an almost-full bottle of water over the German girl in our group -now THAT was funny! Luckily, she seemed to see the funny side too and said that she was glad that it was only water - the poor thing didn't know what had happened at first! At the other side of the village was the last waterfall of the day, Phasuam waterfall. This one was very picturesque and we took a panoramic photo to help us remember it!
45 minutes later, we were back in our hotel in Pakse after a very busy and eventful day. We quickly had showers as we had a Skype date with my mam and Dad. After that, we went to an Indian restaurant down the road which was nice and cheap with some delicious food. We're planning on a lie-in tomorrow and a relaxing final day in Pakse.
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