Pakse Loop: Day 1

​We had so much fun on the Thakhaek loop that we decided to do the other popular Lao motorbike trip as well: The Pakse Loop.

Like everyone else on the Lonely Planet circuit, we dutifully showed up at Miss Noy's to try and rent a motorbike.

I have to say, this was the smoothest bike rental experience we had in SE Asia. The entire operation runs like a well-oiled machine. You show up at some point during the day to make sure you can get a motorbike for the next day. If you manage to snag one, then you show up again in the evening for a detailed info session.

Yves, who conducted our pre-trip info session, was amazing. He was spot on with his advice in terms of which waterfalls were the nicest, which farms/side-trips were worth doing. We stopped at a few waterfalls that he said were just so-so and he was totally right.

The next morning, you return to the shop, put your bags in storage at the back, hop onto a freshly washed motorbike and off you go! Easy Peasy!

Tad Lo: One of the many waterfalls on the Pakse Loop

Which loop?



If you only have time to do one motorcycle trip in Laos, Nick and I would both recommend the Pakse Loop over the Thakhaek Loop. Both were great, but Pakse has the edge because,

1. The waterfalls are truly spectaclular. And there are a dozen real stunners
2. There are a greater variety of things to do along the way (coffee, tea and silk farms, village tours etc)
3. You can make it as long or as short as you'd like. If you only have 2 days, you could do just the biggest waterfalls and back. If you have 3-4, you can include more coffee farms and still more waterfalls. If you have 4-5 days you can go to Champasak & Wat Phu as we did.

The Thakhaek loop isn't without its merits. It wasn't as busy or as developed as the Pakse Loop, so it was a much more leisurely and releaxing trip.

If you do need to skip the Thakhaek loop because of time constraints, but can still squeeze in a trip to see just the Kong Lo Caves, it is well worth it IMO. Overall, we are very happy that we got to do both and felt that each was fun and memorable in its own way.

Mr. Vieng's Coffee Plantation

Our first stop along the loop was a tour of Mr. Vieng's Coffee Plantation.

We learned quite a lot about the different types of coffee plants, when to pick the berries, how the beans are extracted, how they are processed etc. It was all very interesting...but the part I remember most vividly has nothing to do with coffee at all!

Mr. Vieng showed us nests in the coffee plants that red ants had built by joining leaves together with spit. Larger nests can house thousands of ants.

I had never seen ants living in anything other than anthills before, so I thought this was super cool. But fascination quickly turned to shock when Mr. Vieng casually plucked a nest from the plant and rubbed the leaves together killing all the ants inside!

He then proceeded to taste some of the dead ants and offered some to us as well! Ack! The ants apparently have a lemony flavour and are used as seasoning in some soups.

Ant Nest

Apparently they taste lemony

This is one of those situations where I know I need to respect different cultural practices and eating habits. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Even though I am a vegetarian, I do not fault anyone else for eating meat or insects. But I was very uncomfortable that so many ants were killed just to amuse the tourists.

If they had at least used the ants for a soup or something, that would have been one thing, but Mr. Vieng just discarded the crushed up ant nest after we had all taken a look at it.

I'm sure we killed just as many insects when zipping around on our motorcycle, but somehow this felt more wasteful and unnecessary to me.

Tad Lo

After Mr. Vieng's we headed to a small village within walking distance of Tad Lo, the first big waterfall on our route. We found ourselves a guest house for the night then walked down to river. Nick, of course, went for a little swim. Then we ordered fruit shakes and relaxed on the deck of the cafe with a view of the falls.

Elephant spotted on the opposite side of the river! So exciting!

It was all very relaxing and idyllic until we had our second uncomfortable animal moment of the day.

We had been told that there were some elephants that take a bath between 4 and 5pm near the waterfall. But I had naively assumed that they were just wild, local, elephants who liked that particular watering hole.

As we walked to the waterfalls we spotted an elephant in the middle of a stand of trees on the opposite side of the river just munching away on some leaves. I was super excited! I thought it must be one of the local elephants having a pre-bath meal!

Blissfully unaware

It was only later, while we were sitting on the deck that the true sitaution became clear.

The elephant we had seen was not wild. It had a handler and the poor creature had big heavy chains around its legs.

We saw elephant handlers lead 2 elephants to the river, remove their chains and take them into the water. The handler would stand on the elephant's back and on cue it to take a dunk just deep enough that the handler remained dry. A bunch of tourists gathered on the rocks taking pictures.

The elephant went through his little dunking routine a few more times. And that was it! The elephant was led away again and the chains were re-attached.

We had avoided elephant parks in Thailand because we didn't want to contribute to the exploitation and/or mistreatment of them. Yet here we were, unwittingly being part of the problem!

We were not pleased to see this

The chains go right back on after the bath

Both the ant and elephant incident put a bit of a damper on the day for me. It's one of the downsides of travel, I guess. Not everything new that you see is going to be something you are comfortable with. We have no right to dictate how other people should go about their lives.

But what I can do is be a lot more careful about where we spend our money in the future. If we had known about the elephants earlier, we would have gone to some other cafe rather than the one at the Tad Lo Resort.