More than a Tad: Waterfalls on the Bolaven

It took us a while to finally get to Laos, both in terms of making the decision to come and in traveling to get here. Logistics was the primary obstacle. Laos, the only landlocked ASEAN member, is probably the only country in Southeast Asia without a direct budget flight from Singapore. Furthermore, we were thinking of visiting southern Laos, which would add to the journey - eight to ten hours by bus from the capital Vientiane and one hour by plane. What drew us to southern Laos was its waterfalls, and what made us come sooner rather than later was the possibility that the biggest of these waterfalls on our watchlist might disappear in five years (more on this in a later entry).

Pakse was a suitable hub. Eastwards rose the heights of the Bolaven Plateau - known for its coffee and many waterfalls. South of Pakse flows the mighty Mekong until it slips into the multiple emerald channels of Si Phan Don and tumbles into Cambodia over the Khone Phapheng Falls. We chose to get to Pakse via northeastern Thailand - first to Bangkok on a Friday evening Thai Airways flight, then early the next morning to Ubon Ratchathani, from where Pakse was a three-hour bus ride. Arriving in Pakse at noon, five and a half hours after leaving our hotel for Suvarnabhumi Airport that morning, we proceeded to sleep the rest of the day away.

On Sunday, we arranged for a vehicle and a driver to take us to the Bolaven. June was meant to herald the wet season, and indeed Google had forecast thunderstorms for the duration of our stay in Laos. Yet even as billowing white clouds extended across the horizon, it remained stickily sunny all day. Heaven gave no more than a promise of rain to come.

Tad Fan, the first on our itinerary, was the tallest waterfall. Its two streams emerge from the jungle and plunge into a cirque from a height of 120 metres. Coffee buses surround the approach to the main viewpoint, from where a smaller trail descended and led the intrepid to the top of the falls. But after El Salvador, Mary decided that intrepid was what we were not and we went no further. That forgettable memory aside, the upland scenery and coffee bushes reminded us precisely of El Salvador, where the soil was also volcanic in origin.

Below: Tad Fan brings back memories of Juayua in El Salvador, with which the Bolaven shares a similar coffee story.

Like in El Salvador, coffee has been the protagonist in the Bolaven story of recent times. The French first planted coffee on the Bolaven in the 1920s, and production grew steadily until disrupted by the Second World War. Peace when it came was the briefest of respites until broken again by the spillover of violence from the Vietnam War in the 1950s and 1960s. During this time, the eastern Bolaven hosted the Ho Chi Minh trail where North Vietnamese forces ferried arms and supplies to their communist brethren in the South. The American attempt to dislodge the North Vietnamese from the Trail saw the Bolaven become one of the most intensely bombed areas in the entire region. The postwar revival from the 1970s stuttered under collectivisation and price control, before liberalisation in the late 1980s and favourable global market conditions saw tentative growth return. Today, the threat to coffee production seems to come from the agglomerative anonymity of large plantations, mining and hydropower interests.

Tad Yeung, the second waterfall we visited, was the most elegant, falling gently like curtains over an escarpment. It also attracted the most visitors. We hadn't expected so many. While few Singaporeans have heard about the Bolaven, it seems everybody in northeastern Thailand knew about it. One middle-aged Thai lady who we exchanged pleasantries with even welcomed us to Thailand in an unguarded moment.

Below: Tat Yeung, which we shared with at least two busloads of Thai tourists. Welcome to Thailand, one of them, from Roi Et, even said.

Our next waterfall, Tad Lo, was the mightiest of the lot we saw that day. There were two main tiers to the falls, with a popular lodge situated in between (where we lunched) and various eateries in the vicinity. The lower tier was the widest, and had multiple stone ledges connected by bamboo ladders. But it wasn't the time to cavort just beneath the falls, for the flow was swollen by rains upriver which stained it an angry brown. We clambered over rocks to get a closer view, like many Laotians have before us. The evidence of their dalliance with the falls laid strewn around - empty bottles, styrofoam food containers, disused plastic snack wrappers - barely camouflaged by the midday sun's unrelenting glare. A dirt path led from the lodge to the upper tier. This one invited no horseplay, as the main falls powered noisily through a narrow channel in the rock and dropped sharply into a thick brown broth. We kept a respectful distance from a parallel vantage point.

Above (top to bottom): the lower tier of Tad Lo; a group of youths negotiated the rapids and made it to one of the rock ledges, though not before one of their number slipped and was deposited mercifully on shore; the full width of the lower tier, as seen from the bridge further downstream.

Below: keeping a respectful distance from the thick brown broth that was the upper tier of Tad Lo.

Below: Visitors, especially younger ones, were intrigued by the presence of two elephants kept in the lodge for rides. As seems to be wont elsewhere in this region where elephants are kept in captivity, one could feed them for a fee. Our hearts were rent by their chains, which regret alone could not sever.

Tad Pha Suam, our last stop of the day, was the smallest but also the most thrilling. It tumbled on three sides into a basalt basin. The pool at the base of the falls supported a thriving fish population - we counted at least three Mekong catfish, each longer than a metre, during a feeding frenzy which ensued when a family threw in bread. As the river hadn't yet filled up, children splashed around on its upper reaches just before the falls. One could rock-hop all the way to the edge of this natural faucet, and dangle one's feet just above the heaving mass of water.

Above (top to bottom): Tad Pha Suam; a bridge of wood and rattan that led to the falls, excellent for those who like to feel their weight; spot the Mekong catfish.

Below: river critters.

And so a day's loop brought us back to Pakse. Crossing rickety one-way bridges spanning the many streams that criss-cross the plateau, we passed clattering motorcycles, pick-ups over-laden with villagers going to and coming from the city, either sitting or standing (one group was spotted accompanying a considerably-sized sapling which was presumably being transplanted elsewhere), fruit stalls (pineapples and durians seemed to be in season) and the entire cast of Old MacDonald Had A Farm. In the airconditioned comfort of our minivan, daily life in the Bolaven was presented as if in an Edwardian documentary, sans clamour, dust and reality.

It left our Sunday of waterfalls in a state of picturesque idyll.

A note on logistics: We were told by the staff at Champasak Palace Hotel that the usual Bolaven circuit cost US$70 and took in Tad Fan, Tad Yeung and Tad Pha Suam. Tad Lo could be added to this itinerary with an additional US$30. which we paid. A Korean duo we met later shared that they only paid 250,000 (the equivalent of about US$30) for their Bolaven day tour. It would not be the only time we were left aggrieved this time round by Champasak Palace Hotel, but more on that later.