Bolaven Plateau by Jeep & the 4,000 Islands, 3 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. At Ban Beng you change from the minivan to a jeep for the 30-minute track to Tad Moun waterfall, with about an hour to swim or rest. The jeep continues for an hour through vegetable fields, on a track that is rough and muddy in the rains, to a family coffee farm for lunch. The owner then shows how the beans are roasted and leads a tasting of robusta, arabica and typica. A one-hour walk takes you to the farm's viewpoint, and the jeep goes on to a Laven village and to Paksong before you reach your hotel. Meals included today: 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. You watch the sunset from the island and stay overnight on Don Khone. Meals included today: breakfast.

After breakfast a boat takes you to the mainland at the fishing village of Ban Nakasang, where your driver is waiting. You drive south to Khone Phapheng, near the Cambodian border, the largest waterfall in South-East Asia by volume, and then on to the Cambodian border, where the package services end. Arrangements beyond the border are not part of this package. Meals included today: breakfast.