Captain Hook — Hotel in Sekong Province

I am conflicted about rating Captain Hook. The homestay is a marvellous experience, but the facilities are quite primitive: dipper for shower and toilet flush, and the guesthouse is a good kilometer by dirt path from the village. One of the family will guide you there and back, even drive your bike for you. The isolation makes it a wonderfully peaceful place with a great view over Tad Lo, and fine sunsets. After dinner in the family home, Mr Hook and wife accompany you back to the guesthouse for a pleasant chat around a campfire. At the new year there were no mosquitoes. The beds are comfortable and mosquito nets are provided. There is solar powered lighting and recharge points but no fan or aircon. But very good value at 50,000 kip for dinner bed and breakfast.|Dinner at the family house in the village is a communal affair, seated on the floor and helping yourself to rice and a selection of dishes, tasty but not spicy. Breakfast is a stack of egg sandwiches.Coffee is made with a bamboo filter into a bamboo cup, and costs extra.|The tour is comprehensive. Mr Hook is a walking compendium on many subjects, from the history of coffee, through the various ethnic groups of Laos, and the medicinal uses of local plants, to the extraordinary customs and beliefs of his Kaleum people, some of them shocking to western eyes. If you have done Mr Vieng's coffee tour which focuses on coffee production, that is no reason to miss this one. The two tours cover very...

I spent two nights at Captain Hook's Coffee Break last August-2019-and it was just fab.I arrived from Paksong at his village-Ban Khokphung Tai-and was immersed straightaway in village life.I met so many members of his extended family.They were friendly and welcoming and really made me feel at home.Accommodation was in a lovely timber-framed bungalow about 20 minutes away from the village.There was always somebody available to take me there and bring me back on the motorbike.Breakfast was served in the village each morning and dinner was served with Captain Hook's extended family each evening.Sitting around and eating with all these lovely people is something I will never forget.In the evenings we went hunting-for grasshoppers,crickets and lizards.These were taken down to the bungalow,roasted and served to all of us-guests and family members.It was my first time to eat such food and I loved it.I want to pay tribute to all the people I met at Captain Hook's-Kim,Kadang,Captain Hook's wife but most of all to the man himself.Captain Hook is a quiet,soft-spoken man who inspires confidence.He is truly a lovely person and one of the nicest people I met during my two months in Laos.He loves being with people and loves meeting foreigners...This place is definitely worth a return visit and I am happy to give it 10 out of 10....Top marks...

I have mixed feelings about this tour. The tour is divided into multiple parts - village history and traditions, herbal medicine, coffee history and coffee growing. We found the village life part most interesting. Some of the "facts" Hook told us were quite disturbing. Forcing people to live in forests, making women give birth in forests, not using toilets, kicking puppies during annual sacrifice?! I can't judge the tour on this as Hook was just telling us how they live but it definitely made the whole experience much darker. The herbal medicine part was interesting, you go around smelling different roots and believing at face value what they're good for. The coffee history was a bit much.. Hook if you are reading this please make it a lot shorter. We don't need to know all 30 countries where coffee is grown - it's boring and noone remembers this anyway. The coffee they serve in their house is OK but don't expect it to be amazing (go to Paksong for that). Overall I found they are so used to tourists that we are no more than just wandering chickens that bring money to the village each day. Perhaps the place could be a little...