Bolaven Plateau Coffee Farm, Tad Lo & the 4,000 Islands, 5 Nights

You are met on arrival in Pakse and driven up to the Bolaven Plateau, by way of Salavan province, with a tea stop on the road. The plateau is cooler than the plain, and its rivers fall off the edges into forest: you stop at Tad Fane and Tad Yuang waterfalls and see how coffee, tea, cardamom and bananas are grown. The route also passes villages of the plateau's ethnic minorities. You stay overnight on the plateau. No meals are included today.

In the morning you drive to Ban Beng, a small town in the middle of the plateau, and meet the local guide whose jeep takes you along a farm track, past fields of lettuce, ginger and cabbage, to Tad Moun cascade, with free time at the falls. You then walk on through plantations to his coffee farm, arriving at about 12:30 for a lunch of local dishes, and settle into the homestay. In the afternoon he shows you the plantation and explains how coffee is grown, picked, dried and roasted, before a further walk up Phou Katouk. Dinner is at the farm, and you sleep at the homestay. Meals included today: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At about 8:00 the jeep takes you to villages of the Laven and Suay people, then on to Bamboo waterfall for a picnic lunch and about two hours to swim and rest; fruit and drinks are provided. A walk of about an hour leads to Dan Sin Xay for the views. The jeep returns you to the meeting point, and you continue by road to Tad Lo waterfall and your hotel there. Meals included today: breakfast and lunch.

After breakfast you visit Tad Pha Suam waterfall and the traditional houses of several ethnic groups gathered beside it. You then drive to Wat Phou, a UNESCO-listed pre-Angkorian temple set on the slope below Mount Phu Kao, with origins in the fifth century. The route continues past Wat Oum Muang and Phou Asa to Don Khong, the largest island in the stretch of the Mekong known as the 4,000 Islands. You walk to the hotel, cycle around the island and its colonial-era buildings, and watch the sunset over the river. Meals included today: breakfast.

After breakfast you take a boat down the Mekong to Don Khone. On Don Khone and neighbouring Don Det you see village life, the old French buildings and locomotive left from the colonial railway, and the Li Phi rapids, known as the Devil's Corridor, getting around by tuk-tuk or bicycle. The boat then returns you to the mainland at the fishing village of Ban Nakasang, where your driver is waiting, and you drive south to Khone Phapheng, near the Cambodian border, the largest waterfall in South-East Asia by volume. From there you drive north to Champasak for the night. Meals included today: breakfast.

After breakfast your guide takes you up to the viewpoint at Wat Phou Salao, which looks across the Mekong to Pakse, and through the town's market. You are then driven to Pakse airport, where the package services end. Meals included today: breakfast.