Laos Recap

So our time in Laos was very relaxing…The weather at first was pretty rainy and we had a lightning storm nearly every night for the first week and a half.  We began staying in Pakse, the second day in Laos we took the trip to the Bolaven Plateau (coffee/tea farm, ethnic village and waterfall).  We then stayed in Pakse for a few more days, relaxed, toured the town, drank coffee, played cards and read.

Our second trip was to Champasak to visit Wat (Temple) Phu.  We stayed in a guesthouse for two nights on the Mekong river and the temple was pretty neat, we have lots of pictures.  We thought Pakse was really slow…Champasak was even slower, there was very little to do.  I better mention that crossing the Mekong river in a boat made out of half a tree is a little scary.

We returned to Pakse and relaxed some more.  We had been frequenting a coffee shop called Champady.  It was the best coffee we found in town and the food was decent as well.  Anyway, we had made friends with the employees and we asked them if they would be interested in us doing a little bit of coffee/barista training and latte art lessons.  They loved the idea.  It turned out to be an amazing and unique opportunity for us, the language barrier presented some difficulties though.  The Lord has blessed us with a gift and knowledge (coffee industry) that we can take across cultures.  It is a neat way to get to know people.

We then rented motorbikes and took a trip back to the Bolaven Plateau in search of the a couple different coffee growing areas and a specific coffee shop called the “Travelers Meeting Place (or Point) Café”  We rode a long way and didn’t really find what we were specifically looking for, bummer.  We did see many coffee plantations, but didn’t have an opportunity to stop in.  We ended up finding one coffee shop where I bought ½ a Kilo (about 1.1 lbs.) of Arabica beans (not sure the varietal) that looked well sorted, I am excited to roast these.

Then returning to Pakse again, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a large festival.  The main attraction was the boat racing…this is where you have about 20 people in a really long boat racing against other teams.  It was a fun 3 days, full of food and many people…the small town just seemed to be exploding at the seems with locals.

That pretty much sums up the trip vaguely, if you have specific questions, please ask, there is much more to tell.  Hope you all enjoy reading this and please don’t forget to pray for our safety and health as we travel.  We have lots of footage, so look for more videos to come soon.

P.S. sorry for all the posts all at once…we didn’t take our computers to Laos, so I just got a chance to upload all the photos and write about everything.