The following morning we were woken up by rain crashing down on the roof of our hut with thunder banging in the background. We were meant to be leaving Tat Lo this morning but we were thinking about putting it off as we had to catch a couple of buses from tiny villages where there's no bus stands, therefore we would be getting very wet waiting for the bus which no one new the times for.
We headed back to Moma's for a big pancake. She had buckets everywhere catching the water leaking through her tin roof. We decided to brave the weather, we got a taxi (well, some guys van) to the first village to catch the bus. He dropped us on the corner and we hoped this was where the bus would stop, it was the middle of nowhere. Pete tried asking the motorbike mechanics but the only thing they could tell us was that Paksong was that way. After an hour sitting in the drizzle a jumbo turned up, similar to a sawngthaew, it's just a much bigger pickup truck with seats in the back. We jumped in with the local old ladies who kept trying to talk to us in Laos, they were very funny and found us very amusing. We stopped after half hour in the middle of nowhere, all the women jumped out and squatted right next to the truck, hoiked up their dresses and went for a pee, not embarrassed at all going for a wee in front of us. They jumped back on and we were off again, we got dropped off half way to our destination and had to wait for a bigger local bus. Luckily within five minutes and before Pete had drunk half his coffee the bus turned up, we jumped on and within 40 minutes we were there. It was a great journey.

The next town was even less touristy, although it was much bigger it only had a couple of guesthouses. We found one in our guide book but there was no map. We walked down the road, then turned and walked a kilometre back then turned again. No one seemed to understand us or know where it was, luckily we found a coffee shop with a map and found it. Opposite were a couple of little restaurants so we headed over for lunch. We both ordered fried rice and started eating. Pete suddenly gagged and stopped eating, very unlike him. He had spotted a fried cockroach in his rice, knowing they wouldn't think it was a problem we paid and left.

We walked back to the coffee shop as we had read about a Dutch guy who runs coffee tours, unfortunately we couldn't do it that afternoon so we planned to do it the next day. We chilled out at our hotel and as we didn't want to go back to the same restaurant for dinner we bought some Pringles and crisps.

Paksong is still on the Bolaven Plateau and this is the main area where they grow coffee, it again has some beautiful waterfalls. The Dutch coffee guide, Mr Koffie has a coffee shop right next to one of the huge cascades 13km out of town. The next day we hired our first moped and headed off. This was Pete's first time with a passenger and the only bike we could get was semi automatic; no clutch, just crunch gears. We made it in one piece and Kate was quite impressed with Pete's riding.

That morning we obviously didn't want to eat at the cockroach restaurant so by the time we arrived at Mr Koffies we were starving. Luckily they have a great restaurant and we had cheese on toast with Lee & Perrin's sauce, it was so tasty. We booked on to the coffee tour for the afternoon and headed off on the scooter to see the other waterfalls. The first one was small but beautiful and so peaceful as there was no one else there. After half an hour a load of school girls turned up and ended up falling in to the pool fully clothed. We headed to the next one which was amazing, it was much bigger and you could go to the top and the bottom. We would love to see them in the wet season when the amount of water quadruples.

We headed back to Mr Koffies and tried out his best arabica beans. First off Kate had a Latte and Pete a strong white. It was the best coffee we have had. The froth on Kates latte was amazing, it was so creamy! At 2 o'clock when the tour was meant to start the heavens opened so we sampled some more of the lovely coffee. The weather eventually died down and the sun came back out. We then headed out in to the coffe plantations where Mr Koffie started explaining about the different types of trees and coffees. We saw some small Arabica trees where the best coffe of the region comes from, this is what we had tried previously and it was very good. We also saw some robusta trees which don't produce such good coffee. We learnt where the trees grow and how they look after the plantions, everything is organic so they use the husk from the beans to fertalize the soil. They also produce Luwak coffee, this is where weasles eat the beans off the trees, the enzymes in their stomachs soak in to the beans but they do not digest them, the farmers then collect the droppings and process these. It is meant to be the best of the best but they don't produce much. Mr Koffie is currently doing a promotion where you can buy two bags for just 50 Euro's. We continued walking round the plantations as he explained about the swimming pools that the American's put in some years ago; what he was actualy talking about where the bomb craters you can see dotted around the fields. Laos is the most bombed country in the world! Once we had learnt about the coffe and how the taste comes from the soil we headed back for another cup. Again we didn't want to eat at the cockroach restaurant so we got some dinner here before riding the scooter back before it got dark.

We dropped it off and got and walked back to the hotel. Once Kate was in bed, Pete popped out to get some crisps, half hour later Kate was getting a bit worried, then Pete walked through the door with beer on his breath. He had bumped in to an English guy who lives in Thailand with his Laotian wife. They had been at a wedding for the day and wanted a drink so Pete dragged Kate out of bed and we joined them for a couple of beers. Pete was testing out his Thai phrases with them and learnt a couple more before we headed back to bed.