The Indochine Cougars: Coffee + Ice Cream
March 23, 2006
Friends of mine are traveling by bike with their two-year-old son in Laos, Cambodia and the region. (read more) Today they reported to me that they don't have an itinerary - they're playing it by ear. Here's another report from them:
So before recounting anything of the Bolaven of the past 5 days, we must share yet again what makes Laos such an excellent country. Today we had about 18 km of moderate climbing right in the afternoon heat. (Note, with 60 lbs of gear and 30 lbs of Cody Lao, there's really no such thing as "moderate" climbing). So after a very long strecth of up, the soul-sapping kind where the road seemingly goes up straight as an arrow for 2-3 km where you can always see the top but never get there, we finally did make it. Totally spent we stop and get off the bike for a breather and a little warm water. After a few minutes a fellow on an old trike-motobike pulls up sellling ice-cream cones! I kid you not. We're in the relative middle of nowhere and yet here's a guy with ice cream. Little cones of purple and white sherbert for 20 cents each. We've never had ice cream so refreshing. It cooled us down and let us conintue still tired, but immensely recharged. That's the thing about Laos, whenever we feel at our most spent-out there is some local that comes along to help or inspire us one way or another and keep us going on.
The Bolaven Plateau is a high plateau in southern Laos 3000-6000 feet above the surrounding area which is 300 feet above sea-level. It is home to Laos' coffee growing region, as well as many banana plantations and numerous waterfalls. Didn't know Laos grew coffee? Methinks the secret is no accident. The coffee is excellent, among the best in the world (to which we now can heartily attest) but it is a small region with limited production capability. The French buy around 90% of output. The remainder is consummed internally and increasingly by the Vietnamese. Apparently, event the Vietnamese won't drink their own coffee.
As for the Cougars, in addition to starting our day with two each (except for Cody, some lines simply are not crossed even on extended travel) we went to the local's market and procurred a supply for import. From most of the plantations we passed, it is not shade grown. And we don't know if buying hand-stuffed plastic bags from a local at their market constitutes fair-trade or not, but at 50 cents a pound for the best coffee we've ever had, we were jettisoning garments and equipement to make extra room in are already stuffed panniers.
Posted by orbike at March 23, 2006 9:21 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.eroidelivers.com/bins/mt/mt-tb.cgi/190