Day 6: Crossing into Laos

Saturday, 10/26/2024

Woke early today.  Got ready and started to pack up. Laundry is not dry as I feared.  Put the wet stuff into a plastic bag and it will go into the bag on the truck.  It is still damp, but not too bad, might dry in truck some depending on temperature today.

Walked over to the main area for breakfast and took some photos along the walk.  Dropped off the bag to be loaded on the truck along the way as well.  Very foggy this morning and a bit cool, but sure it will burn off as the sun comes up.

Dragon fruit tree just outside my room.

Early morning field work.

Pond near the hotel.

Today we will be leaving Vietnam and crossing the border into Laos, so should make for an interesting day.

We hit the road at 8:00am.  The usual curvy, hilly roads we have seen each day. 

We stopped in a small town to visit a chopstick factory.  They harvest the bamboo somewhere outside of town, haul it in and dump it off onto the ground.  Then workers pull up the large pieces and cut them down to size and then it is split up in halves.

Bamboo dropped at the Chopstick factory.

The material is slowly worked through various steps until the small chopstick shoots out of an intriguing machine at the end.   Others gather up the sticks and take them over to bind them up for shipping later.  All the excess material is swept up by others and dumped into a huge pile, which is then later taken and burned for fuel or other needs.

Chopstick factory.

Finished product ready to sell.

We then continued and soon turned off the main road, crossing the river and started up the narrow, and usually steep paved country paths we have seen so much of here.  We worked our way up a bit into the hills and then back down, where we came to a narrow bridge over a river.

We stopped just on the other side to walk back over and see the old steel bridge better and take photos of the large cliff and undercut cave just down river.

Good highway on the way to Laos border.

Crazy traffic today! (Photo by another)

Checking out the bridge we just rode over.

Under cut cliff down river.

Then it was a short ride down the hill where we parked up along the road side so we could hike a small bank down to the river’s edge across from the overhanging cliff.  If you walked up the beach (I think water levels are down a bit) you could see the bridge we just crossed.   Looked like a fun place where you could take a swim if you wanted.

Parked at the river.

View from the river bank (Taken with InfraRed camera)

Looking back up river at the bridge.

We came quickly back to the main road and headed onward toward the border.

We started to go slowly through all the villages, looking for a place to take a break and get coffee (for most anyway), but was having trouble finding places either open, or that are open and have coffee.   We finally did find a place and spent about 20 minutes resting and having a beverage while looking out over the farms and river below the small cliff we sat upon.

View from the deck of the coffee shop.

Break done, it was back onto the bikes and headed toward the border town.

Once we arrived in town we got almost to the border and stopped for fuel (did not really need it yet, but think we have a distance on other side where it might not be as easily found?).  We then backtracked a bit to a small place that looked mostly like a small grocery shop.

They let us use the large open seating area next door to prepare and eat our picnic lunch of sandwiches (Sort of like banh mi, but very basic).  We did buy several beverages from the shop and they were also able to exchange money there, so most of us picked up Laos currency (the Kip).

I bought $100 worth.  It has a similar exchange rate to the Vietnam Dong, though not quite as good. It was 22,000 per $1, so ended up with 2,000,000 Kip which should hopefully get me through our 8 days in Laos.

We finished up lunch, packed up stuff and then rode the roughly 1 km (2/3 of a mile) to the border area.  We stopped at the first entry checkpoint where a gate was closed across the road.  The border was still not open yet.

We sat there with a few other vehicles for about 10 minutes before they let us through, but they made us push the bikes through the checkpoint, then we could ride the last 100 meters (328 feet) to the building, a bit bizarre.

Border is a large building with a tunnel through the middle.  We parked up along the front of the building and the guides proceeded to work the exit process from Vietnam as well as process the bikes exit and prep for entry to Laos (I guess this is the harder part and takes up the most time).

The support truck driver did his own thing and was done and drove on through after about 40 minutes while we still waited.

Tan had collected our passports earlier in the day so he had all the documents he needed, and of course the visas were already obtained back in Hanoi.  So, we just waited, and waited, and waited.  After 1.5 hours, they came out with documents we all had to sign 2 copies of unique to ourselves, so that took about 10 minutes to do.

After another 30 minutes, we were cleared to cross and leave Vietnam with the bikes.  They had done the exit stamps in our passports and provided us a registration document for the bikes and another slip of paper that had to be given to the Laos border people.

We again had to push the bikes across the border line before we could get on and ride.  This had been going on all during the wait, locals would ride up, get off, walk across, then hope on and go.  Most must have had some kind of pass or sticker somewhere as they rarely even stopped, just a nod from the guard and they were through, only a few being stopped coming into Vietnam to have bags quickly looked at.

Across the checkpoint we then rode the bikes about a 1 km (2/3 of a mile) up the road to the Laos checkpoint.

Here we parked up the bikes and this time we had to go up to the building ourselves.  We now signed that slip of paper and then each in turn (with many locals trying to cut into line any chance they could) went to the window where they took the paper, checked the passport, typed a few things, took a photo to match up to the visa and then stamped us into Laos.

Again, pushing bike through the checkpoint, we parked on far side and waited for the rest of the group to get though.  I was in the middle of the group, so did not have too long to wait.  Total time through the border was roughly 3 hours.

Entering Laos Officially (Photo by Tammy)

Once we were all in, we then got geared up and back on the bikes and headed down the highway.

We were pushing hard as we had about 2-2.5 hours of riding, but only 1.5 hours of daylight left, so tried to really keep the speed up, which posed some challenges as the road conditions had now gotten much worse than we had been seeing in Vietnam.

The road was hilly, curvy, lots of small villages and even hit some light road works and landslide messes, and traffic was bit heavier now too as this was really only route into the area.

Laos highways have more sections like this.

When a landslide creates a 1 lane highway.

Never know what will be driving on the roads here.

As we neared the city for tonight’s stay, the traffic became very heavy, and we were also on the more hilly and narrower roads going over a pass.  It was about then that the sun set and it got dark and also the road deteriorated into a broken, pot hole ridden dirt path with short sections of pavement.

Racing the sun, it was faster.

It has not rained recently, so very loose, dry dust was hanging thick in the air, making visibility near nothing beyond the tail lights in front of you, and your own head light just created a blob of glowing dust around it.

While you could try to leave a little space between cars, if you left enough, someone would pass you and fill it.  Did not help that several of the locals were riding bikes with no lights coming the other way and as normal using the entire road instead of staying on just one side.

Oncoming bike with no lights!

As we arrived on the edges of Sam Nuea where we will stay tonight, the roads did improve and the dust went away, but of course traffic was still thick.

We eventually found the hotel, but then we had some interesting challenges with parking the bikes.

There were only a handful of spots in front of the place, so they popped open a garage along the side (mainly used for storage and parking the staff or owners’ bike) and put a few bikes in there, but only fit 3 of the 8 bikes.

They then opened a set of doors into a lobby dining space with 3 small steps leading up into it.

We had to ride up the steps and into the open space cleared by moving a few tables to make room for the other 5 bikes.  Crazy!

Xayphasouk Hotel (Taken next morning in better light).

Steps we rode up to park in the lobby. 😀

Mark had ridden that last hour without a headlight, it was not working, and he was visibly and understandably upset and frustrated, even angry I would say.  Trying to lighten up the mood I tried to use some humor, which was misinterpreted, getting him a bit more annoyed and we all just kind of let him rant and vent for a while after that.  (He and I sorted things later, no damage done).

We all picked up our room keys and retired to our rooms to change, clean up and calm down a bit, we were all a bit edgy due to the stressful riding that last hour.  I was only on the 2nd floor, so only a small climb, though stairs were really oddly spaced and there was no elevator.  Had no view at all, just other buildings, but was a decent room still.

Nice room tonight, just no view.

Did the usual unpacking routine.  I find if I just do the same things every day, and create a pattern or routine, I am less likely to forget to do something or forget something, it all has a place and time.  Got showered and then hung up the still damp clothes to allow them to finish drying.

As it was already late, we then headed downstairs to wait for the others so we could go get dinner.  I got onto the wi-fi since I no longer had cell service here in Laos, and does not sound like there are many options for SIM cards here this late, may have to wait till next town.

Once we all were ready, we went out and walked roughly 1 kilometer (2/3 of a mile) down the main road to a local restaurant. Was eerily quiet for 7:00pm, hardly a person out and very few cars moving around.

Walking to dinner in Sam Nuea.

Here we got to formally met and get to know our Laos guide and the police officer that would be with us the entire time in Laos.  They would ride along in the support truck.

Kone was the guide and he would handle much of the interaction with locals, helping translate if need and giving advice as well as providing background and history on the many places we would stop.

The officer was named Sy (Not sure how it was actually spelled) and he was along, I think, to make sure we were not bothered by any other police checkpoints and to make sure we were not going any place we were not welcome to go.

Dinner was good, some slight variations on the Vietnamese cuisine we had been eating, and seemed to lean more on meats over vegetables, but still both present.  I had a tea to drink as Coke seems to not be very popular here (looks like Pepsi has this market) and enjoyed several of the food dishes.

Kone actually went next door and bought a few sausages being cooked up on a little street grill and brought them over which were pretty good.  He also brought a cooked frog!

I tried a bit of it, yeah, tasted like fishy chicken.  Not really sure which part I ate, was pretty beat up after cooking, though could still tell what it used to be.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and all went back to our rooms, not much else to do and we were all exhausted anyway.

By now I was also feeling a bit of sunburn on my head and neck from all the standing around we did at the border.  Normally my riding gear protects me well, but took most of it off while waiting as it was hot and humid there at the border.  I forgot to put my hat on too for some reason, so head is a bit red and tender.

I normally would write my journal in the evenings before bed, but since the pen died last night, and I had not yet found a replacement, I had to use a voice dictation app on my phone and just save a transcript of the day’s events, with bit less detail probably.

I will later copy it over into the book as it will be better preserved, and the app only saves the text for 3 days, and could not find a way to copy it out.

Overall was a good day, think I got some good video today and some nice photos.

We will be starting a bit earlier tomorrow as another long day and want to try and avoid a night time arrival again.

Goodnight!