spicy journey among human tribes: Laos: Bolaven Plateau (Day 130-132)


Tad Lo waterfall

We did not manage to go around the whole Bolaven Plateau as we had been a bit too relax in planning the few days there. It is what´s happen after a little while in Laos :-) After a night in a lovely double bed in the bus (we recommend it), we arrived in Pakse and then Tad Lo, one of the recommended place on the Boloven Plateau. It was less touristy than we thought, for once, as indeed while we can still enjoy the traditional way of life and meet the friendly locals when going off the beaten track, Laos is changing and developping very fast... We again found a nice little basic bungalow overlooking the river and waterfalls. We met with Mama from the first little restaurant when entering the village and found out she was a character... Lucky as we are, we arrived on time for the ´Ngae traditional festival´which only takes place only once a year in March in some of the nearby villages, which consists in the slaughter of a buffalo. We went to the evening party where we enjoyed the gambling games all around the village with the locals. We also enjoyed the dance ceremony taking place the night before the killing of the buffalos at 6 am. We did not make it to the sacrifice in the morning as it is a pretty rough wake up and we have seen enough in the North.
As I said earlier, our planning was quite poor and thus we had to go back to the nearest town (1h30 by bus where we came from) to get some money as we runned out of cash :-)
We then rented a motorbike to go on the other side of the Plateau and learn about coffee in Paksong. Not the best town but worth the visit and we spent a great evening with fellow travellers from Quebec-Canada, who we followed or followed us all the way down to the 400 islands.

All about coffee plantation, coffee growing... At least some facts... There are 2 kinds of Coffee beans: Arabica, growing at higher altitude (> 1200 m) & Robusta growing between 600 and 1200 m. A coffee tree looks like a christmas tree with plastic leaves. A coffee plantation can only be found on volcanic soils with lava rocks. When planting new trees, the owner will have to wait 5 years before the first harvest. 1 tree will give 5kgs of ground coffee (regardless of the number of trunks which is usually 2). High quality coffee is made with the red beans. Harvesting the green beans allows the owner to produce more and cheaper coffee as the quality will be lower. It is also easier as only the red berries need to be processes the same day. How to recognize an organic plantation? Just look around and you should find some grass, weeds...

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR COFFEE in a supermarket? For pure good quality Arabica (only made with red beans), look at the back of the pack if: the coffee beans have been hand-picked, otherwise it would mean that they have mixed green and red beans; if they have grown in the shadow, if they come from a single estate, have been washed the same day and been sun-dried.