Motorbiking the Bolaven Plateau
Monday, March 24th, 2008Not a single other person had signed up for a tour of the Bolaven Plateau by 7pm last night, not at any of the three places I went to. I even tried to get a ride out with the owner of Delta Coffee, a little cafe/restaurant in town with their own coffee plantation out there, but no luck, too busy. So this morning I thought it would be an injustice to just cruise by without at least checking the place out.
I rented a motorbike from the guest house, topped off with fuel at the gas station using sign language, and off I went with a bad one page ‘map’ and a general direction of where to go. I had tried out the brakes on all of the six or seven motor scooters they had and picked one that seemed best, the only one with a brake lever that wasn’t bent back due to a previous crash. Well that was a mistake as there was a very noticeable rubbing the entire time. I looked at the chain and it was a rusted mess. I hoped it wouldn’t brake on me and kept speed down to about 40-50kph.
I rode all the way out to Paksong, supposedly the center of the coffee growing area. There were houses all along with trees in the yards, but not being a coffee drinker nor a gardener, I couldn’t say what was a coffee tree and what was not. Paksong is a pretty small town and I stopped and got a bottle of water from a corner stand to some looks. I then went to the market and briefly walked through the stalls of fermented fish in open buckets, bootleg cds with poor photocopied covers, food stalls, and clothing stalls. I really wanted to buy a snack there, but the handling of food with bare hands and the flies kept me away.
I then rode about ten kilometers back to find Tat Fane, the big waterfall in this area. A kilometer off the main road, down a dirt and gravel road led to a little market and then a small parking area with a gate. I paid my five thousand kip and walked past some houses, then to the Tat Fane Resort. I found the lookout and took some pictures of the one hundred twenty meters waterfall almost directly opposite the valley. I started to follow the trail to the right, but decided this would be the absolute wrong way to go to get to the falls as the lip of the canyon rim was in the opposite direction. I walked back to the resort and got some directions.
The trail is unmarked and was in the opposite direction, between one of the houses and the bungalow. I walked it past some crop trees and followed the more worn trail that led in the general direction I wanted to go. Twenty minutes later after descending some steep hills I ended up at the first of the two falls and found a curious tree with all sorts of pods growing up and down it’s trunk and branches. I worked my way to the edge and then decided to head after the bigger of the two falls which shouldn’t be too far away.
Sure enough a short walk later I was at the bigger fall. Curiously I saw a man in his underwear walking away down the creek and disappear. I snapped some quick pictures and went to the fall, getting some good pictures of the valley far below while firmly grasping some young bamboo on the side of the cliff face. The valley below looked incredibly beautiful and pristine. I wish there was a trail down to there, though it would be quite a hike back out. The cliff walls here is nearly ninety degrees straight up and down.
Walking back along the creek I found that the mysterious man in blue briefs was back. I walked towards him, waved, and said ’sabaii dii’ (hello.) This elderly man then got up fro his crouch in the creek and walked up to me with something small in his hand. It was a small snail and he held up his other hand that held a small plastic bag with a few snails in them. I pulled out my camera, asked him if it was OK to take his picture, and took some pics when it was obvious he didn’t object. I thanked him and he went back to lifting rocks off the bottom of the creek in search of more snails. I left him a small tip between his flip flops when he wasn’t looking and left.
Huffing and puffing back up the steep hill, I started day dreaming as usual. Then a voice told me that “hey, you’ve gone too far dummy and you can’t hear the falls anymore even though you should be between the two.” I then retraced my steps almost all the way back and found the cut off that I had missed.
At the first of the two falls again I followed the creek back about a hundred meters to where a small waterfall was. I was pretty hot and sweaty then and thought it would be great to swim here. I had even brought my swim trunks just for such an event. I got into them and found that the water was quite chilly. Then I noticed that the lip of rocks a foot below the surface disappears in an arc around the waterfall and was pitch black beyond. Hmmm. Must be deep I thought.
I picked up a stone and cast it in and it just disappeared. I then picked up a larger one requiring two hands and heaved it over the edge. It disappeared with a splash and bubbles kept coming up to the surface ten seconds later. I didn’t see it and didn’t hear it hit bottom. As it were, I chickened out of swimming in this bottomless pool in the middle of nowhere and just splashed water over myself, took some pictures, and left.
Back at the top I found that three people were harvesting coffee beans along my route back. I said “sabai dii” and they said it in return and looked at me inquisitively. As I walked closer I heard the older man say “barang” which means foreigner. I walked up to them and exchanged greetings again before motioning to my camera and asking if I could take some pictures to which they agreed.
There were three of them, a man and woman in their twenties clothed head to toe to include fingerless gloves, hats, and scarves. The older man was less clothed. The older man then used a stick to pull down the tall branches of the coffee tree, about twenty feet high. One of the other two would then use a stick, hook it onto the branch, stand on it to keep it in place, and go about picking the beans. After a few minutes I thanked them and left.
Along the trail back I saw three young girls picking something along the ground. Though they were quite playful and boisterous, they each had a plastic water bottle to store what ever it was they were looking for. One of them saw me and they all ran up to me. I took a few pictures as they posed and showed it to them to much giggling.
I then rode to the little market and went to the first little house/restaurant with a few tables on the deck. There was a man sitting in front and a little boy in a little stander/roller thingamabob. I ordered the only thing available, Fo, and started to talk with the man, Ling, who spoke English fairly well. He told me that the taller of the trees was Robusta, and the short ones were Arabica. He said it takes about four years for the trees to start producing coffee beans and that they would continue to produce beans for decades. He’s been in this house with a plot of land behind for two years now, so no beans to harvest yet. He also explained that most of the farmers sold their beans to a few of the big companies, but that a few had banded together to export the beans themselves. He also told me his thirteen month old was nicked named “Jimmy Hendrix.” Sure enough, he answered to that name.
