Hiking thru Waterfalls

Well, we don't have much to inform you on Pakse as it is mainly a gateway to Southern Lao. The town is small but has many things around it you can do. We went on a 2 day trek through the Bolaven Plateau which extends across tea and coffee plantations. Our first day of the hike was really nice- easy walking through the plantations. When we climbed up a hill made from lava rock we saw many different small fires burning the brush and trees around. Our guide said that it was from someone not putting out a cigarette, but it was pretty obvious that someone was intentionally burning the area for some reason. With how dry it is around, it's amazing the whole hill was not on fire - luckily it wasn't very windy. Then we went to have lunch at a waterfall that was simply amazing. We all went swimming in the lagoon and the water was freezing but felt actually nice after walking in 90 degree heat. That night we stayed at a "home stay" with a local family. It was actually a guesthouse but we stayed in the lodge with the family instead of the actual guest rooms. Our group was one Swiss and two Isreali's, all women, that were nice. Ben was the only guy aside from our guide. It is just one open room with mattreses and mosquito nets. All the males were in the guesthouse for the night except Ben, he stayed in the lodge with us. One of the family members came up to the room in just a towel and was mortified to see Ben sitting on the ground - once she saw him she ran to the furthest end of the room and ducked behind a chest. Our next day was a little more like hiking instead of walking. We went through the jungle to see another waterfall that was much bigger than the first one. It rained on us almost the whole way there and we paused at a coffee plantation to wait out the heavy stuff. The workers there found us very amusing and kept asking us questions and laughing. They continually commented on our "beautiful white skin" so we tried to explain that where we are from we try to have look tan like them - a concept they don't understand because everywhere around here it is better to have whiter skin and all you see are whitening lotions in all the stores. When we got to the waterfall it had stopped raining so we relaxed in the sun and took in the sight. None of us went swimming here because we were not as hot as yesterday. We had lunch and moved onto our last waterfall, Tad Fane. You can not see this waterfall as up close or go swimming because it is almost 200m high and is actually 2 spilling into a big gorge. Pretty impressive. That concluded our trek and home stay before we headed back to Pakse and onto the 4 thousand islands.