February 13, 2007
To Savannakhet: Vietnam-Laos border crossing
The border opens at 7am. We get there about 5 minutes past. The bikes are still parked where we left them in the hotel courtyard. It is foggy this morning, a warm humid fog. We try to buy some baguettes, but the lady gives Patrick a hard time not wanting to accept small notes and coins. So, she gets to keep her bread and we won't change money either. Guess it's time to leave Vietnam.
In Thailand and Cambodia, Patrick would always count on the honesty of the people, often just giving a big bill and not even counting the change. In Vietnam, we felt we could not do that. Many cyclists write in their blogs that they disliked Vietnam. We would not go that far, but we are ready to leave. The constant honking, busy traffic and always having to be on guard is wearing on us.
Getting the exit stamp is straight forward, we walk through a huge Welcome Gate to enter Laos. At the immigration station is a throng of people crowding three small holes in a row of windows. The upper part is frosted so you have to stoop over to see people on the other side. Patrick manages to get some forms we have to fill out by intercepting a uniformed guy entering the office. We fill out the forms and Patrick pushes in front of the other window. There is a guy behind a computer with big stacks of passports in front of him, most from busloads of passengers that are now waiting around, their buses empty in the parking lot.
The guy notices Patrick and gestures to pass him our passports. Five minutes later we have our entry stamp. We ride into Laos on a good asphalt road, barely any traffic. The fog burns off after a while, it gets humid and hot. The villages shown on our map are just clusters of bamboo and grass huts on stilts. The larger town shown doesn't add up to much either.
We see some guesthouses in Sepon, but no bank which we need for money exchange. A headwind starts together with the heat makes it hard going. Patrick notices a pickup truck that just passed us is coming back, turns again and comes up from behind. We stop to talk to them. He is Swiss, his girlfriend is Thai and they live in Chang Mai. They were trying to do a road trip in Vietnam and discovered that they do not have the papers to be able to take a car into Vietnam. They offer us a ride all the way to Savannakhet, our destination in two more days. We gladly accept, the only good thing about the ride so far has been the groups of kids shouting "Sabaidee" at us, the landscape is dry and brown. And we have no Lao money (Kip).
The bikes and gear go in the bed of the truck, we cram in the narrow rear seat, but there is AC and we are two days down the road in a matter of hours. With our guidebook we find a decent Guesthouse, the bank closes at 4pm though we are too late to change money. The hotel accepts dollars though ($1 USD = 10,000 kip) and they give kip for change.
We have a great dinner with Eric and his girlfriend at a river side restaurant just north of town. While we eat and drink and watch the sunset over Thailand across the Mekong River. They are very nice, and especially nice to have a Thai order dishes for us. We talk quite a while and return to the hotel about 8pm.
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Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 5,437 km (3,376 miles)
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