A solo ride through southern Laos, by someone going back to where his family came from
Most people who come to Laos go north. Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, the usual run. I went south, to Pakse, and rode the Bolaven Loop.
I had a reason beyond the waterfalls. My mother is from Vientiane and my father was from Pakse. In 1979, four years after the communists took the country, she crossed the Mekong into Thailand at night. She has told me that a lot of people were killed or drowned making that crossing, and that being pregnant helped her float. I was the reason she floated. I was born in a refugee camp on the other side.
My father was supposed to follow with my older sister, who was about two. He never made it, and he was presumed dead.
So this was a loop through coffee plantations and waterfalls, and it was also a week spent in the town my father grew up in.
Pakse, and where I stayed
I stayed at Kai Lions International Hostel and Motorbike Rental, right in the middle of town. Five dollars a night for a capsule style bed, and I would put the beds and the linens up against anywhere I have stayed at that price. It is not a party hostel. People go there to sleep and to sort out the loop, which suited me.
The location does most of the work. Restaurants on the doorstep, open air markets nearby, the bus station close by, and the main airport less than ten minutes away.
The other thing that makes it worth naming is that the bike rental is on site, the staff know the loop properly, and they hand you a free map. They also knew about the places that are not on the standard route, which is how I ended up at the best thing I did all week.
If you have time in Pakse beyond the loop, there is Wat Phou, the Khmer temple complex down the road, and Wat Phousalao up above the town.
Day one: four waterfalls at km 40
I rode the loop counter clockwise, heading for Paksong first. The loop runs on kilometre markers and landmarks rather than road names, so people talk about where things are by the km number, and you get used to it quickly.
The first stop is km 40, and it is the best value stretch of the whole ride. Four waterfalls sit within about two kilometres of each other, so you can do all of them in a morning.
Tad Fane is the big one, two falls dropping side by side into a gorge. This is the one with the zip line.
Tad Yuang lets you walk to the top of the falls, right to the edge before the drop, and then down to the base.
Tad Champee is the one where you can swim directly underneath the water.
Tad E-Tu is abandoned now, but you can still make your way down to the bottom.
There are decent restaurants at the falls with views over the water, which is not always true of places like that.
From there I carried on up to km 50, which is effectively downtown Paksong. I ate at the open air market, local food, and stayed in a guest house whose name I did not write down. Paksong sits high enough that the temperature drops, and after the heat lower down it is a shock in a good way.
The best thing I did all week
Somewhere along the main loop there are signs for Noun Luong village. You turn right off the loop and keep driving until you reach the sign. If you are using GPS, search for Tiger Waterfall, which is what will actually bring it up. I was told that it is mostly Thai travellers who know about this one, and I did not see another Westerner there.
There are plenty of homestays in the village, and you are required to take a guide from one of them. That is not an upsell, it is the only way you would find any of it.
It starts by getting you across a stream, on foot, along a cable line. From there you walk through coffee plantations and then into dense jungle, climbing the whole way, crossing streams, passing hidden waterfalls and strange plants that look like Venus fly traps.
After about an hour you come out at the top, and the view is the reason you came. You can see other waterfalls off in the distance, and I was told that on a clear day you can see all the way to the Mekong.
If you do one thing off the standard loop, do this.
Thateng and the mini loop
Back on the main road, I carried on to Thateng and rode the mini loop that branches off the Bolaven Loop there.
This stretch is the scenic one. Rice paddies, and villages where you come across one of the ethnic minority groups of the region. I ended up in the middle of a town square more or less by accident. The women there are known for smoking home made tobacco, which is how people identify them.
I stayed the night in Thateng, in another guest house. Oddly, Thateng was the last cool place on the route. After that the loop drops back down and the heat returns.
Tad Lo, and back to Pakse
Tad Lo was the last big stop. I did some rock climbing and swam in the falls, and there are little huts built out over the water where you can order food and sit for as long as you like. There is a good coffee shop there too.
One thing to know: most of the places to stay around Tad Lo do not have air conditioning, and by this point you are back down in the heat. It was hot even at night.
From there it was the ride back to Pakse. I did the whole thing, loop and mini loop, in four to five days.
The practical side
The bike. I rented a Honda Click, an automatic, for $10 a day, with 10% off for staying at the hostel. The other option was a Honda Wave, but the Click had better reviews and I wanted the newer bike. Helmet and maps came with it.
Riding it. This was my first time ever on a motorbike. After about ten minutes it felt easy. The one thing to get your head around is that the accelerator is on the handlebars, not at your feet. The staff did warn me that there is no roadside assistance out there, and if you break down in the middle of nowhere you are a long way from help.
The roads. Laos is notorious for bad roads and potholes, but the main Bolaven Loop is one of the best roads in the country. That is what the tolls pay for. The roads that branch off it towards the waterfalls are a different story: usually dirt, often rough, and that is where novice riders get hurt. Slow right down once you leave the main loop.
Tolls and police. You cross two toll booths. On a motorbike you do not stop or pay. There is a lane off to the right where you just ride on past. Between the two booths there is a police checkpoint where they check your speed. Any fine is paid on the spot, and whatever they ask for, you can usually negotiate it down.
What it cost. The hostel bed was $5. Local food is cheap and, unlike the touristy parts of Laos, not inflated: about $2 gets you a good meal. A full tank was 100,000 kip, around $5, and on that bike it went a long way.
Eating. I ate locally the whole time and bought fruit and bits from stalls along the loop, which you spot as you ride. The restaurants at the waterfalls are good and have the views.
When to go. I went in September, in the rainy season. It rained a lot, but it always seemed to stop at the right moment. The upside of going then is that the falls are at their best flow.
Getting there, and the visa. This is the one that catches Americans out. For a visa on arrival at the land border you need clean, crisp $40 in US bills. Fly into Ubon Ratchathani on the Thai side and take the international bus across to Pakse, which costs about $6.
The other reason I was there
My first time back in Laos was 2009, and it was not like it is now. I remember troops at the airport with AK-47s. The country had only recently started welcoming foreign tourists again, and a lot of people like me were nervous about going at all, because we half expected to be treated as traitors for having left.
That trip was also the first time I met my older sister. She is the one who never made it out, and who grew up in Laos while I grew up in America.
This trip was calmer. Easier. And in Pakse I met my father's older sister for the first time, who had emigrated to France. That was the part I was not ready for.
She took me around the neighbourhood where my father grew up. I have one black and white photograph of him, and that is the whole of what I have.
The hostel I had booked, without knowing anything, turned out to be in that same neighbourhood. So the streets I had been walking down all week, looking for somewhere to eat, were almost certainly streets he walked down too.
Go south
I would tell anyone coming to Laos for the first time to come here. Most people only do the north, and the north is beautiful, but southern Laos is where you get the real flavour of everyday local life.
The loop gives you four waterfalls in one morning, a jungle climb almost nobody has heard of, rice paddies, villages where nothing is laid on for you, coffee at the source, and a bed for five dollars at the end of each day.
And for me it gave me a week of walking around a town I had only ever seen in one photograph.