On the way to Vientiane

Meg and I are back in Pakse trying to make arrangements to get from here to Vientiane. We've spent the last couple of nights in a bungalow on cliff overlooking the waterfall at Tad Fane.

Tad Fane on the Bolaven Plateau.
On Friday Phil, Maya, Meg and I set out with a French family on a tour of the Bolaven Plateau. The plateau is the home of the Lao coffee and tea industries, a number of absurdly picturesque waterfalls and is the traditional home of a handful of Laos' smaller ethnic groups. Accordingly, our tour stopped at a coffee plantation, a couple of tribal villages and three different waterfalls. It was all quite nice, though it would have been better if our driver/guide had spoken at least a little English or French, or if we spoke Lao. As it was we had to be satisfied with the driver pulling to a stop, pointing at something, then telling us the name. At the end of our tour, the driver dropped Meg and I at our hotel and took the rest of the crew back to Pakse (if all went as planned, Phil and Maya should be waiting for us on the beach on Koh Phi Phi in Thailand).

There's not a lot to tell about the last couple of days (except Meg's story about becoming a mom below). We took a couple of hikes around the hotel, but spent most of our time sitting on the front porch of our bungalow hiding from the rain and watching the mists blow in and out of the valley.

As an aside, Lao coffee is an amazing thing. It's so thick and black that the color doesn't change when you add milk. The flavor is strong but not bitter. We're bringing some home, if you ask nice we might share.

Meg's in the process of arranging our travel from Vientiane to Phuket, Thailand and becoming increasingly frustrated, I better go pay attention to her.

Enjoy.