Pakse, the Bolaven Plateau & 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. The route also passes villages of the plateau's ethnic minorities. You stay overnight on the plateau. No meals are included today.

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 back to Pakse 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.