December 11, 2016
To Nong Khai: Over the bridge and back to Thailand
An easy day today, except for the border crossing hassle.
I had breakfast at the hotel. There was a group of 5 men from Malaysia on a bike tour. They had come by bus from Luang Prabang, and said they were going to do the Mae Hong Son loop in northern Thailand. I can't quite put the geography together to figure out why they had come south to Vientiane on a long bus ride, but more power to them if they have the legs to ride that loop!
I had asked at the hotel about the best route to the Friendship Bridge. They suggested I just take the main road, and said traffic would be light because it's Sunday. So I took the main road. Their idea of "light" and mine don't match too well. It wasn't a bad ride, but the car exhaust was getting to me again.
I stopped at a coffee resort for my last Lao coffee, this time a Lao style cafe latte. I had a pain au chocolate with it. I'm not an expert in pain au chocolate, but this was about the best I've ever had!
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As I got closer to the border, I spotted a money exchange, and converted all of my Lao kip to Thai baht.
Then I rode on and into Lao immigration. There was quite a queue. I was waved forward, until I reached a point where I was told to go back. I ended up parking my bike and standing in line for close to half an hour to get the Lao exit stamp. Once I had the exit stamp, I had to buy a border pass to leave. They wanted 11,000 kip. I only had baht, so they accepted 50 baht. I had never heard about this exit fee, but it seemed legitimate and everyone was paying, albeit Lao people at a lesser amount, with a receipt and a ticket to get through an exit gate. After I was through the exit gate, I had to walk back on the road to the Lao side in order to get my bike.
I rode the little loop de loop that changes from right hand drive in Laos to left hand drive in Thailand, and then across the bridge. The Thai side was also queued up, and I again ended up parking my bike and waiting in line for my visa on entry. It worked okay, and I got the 30 day visa. I again had to walk back through immigration on the road to get my bike.
All in all, the process from reaching Lao immigration, riding across the bridge, and exiting Thai immigration took about an hour and a half. It was just a short ride into the town of Nong Khai.
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I found my hotel, the Klang Muang, reserved on line. It is 480 baht/night through Agoda for a standard room, but 800 baht walk in. It's a little weird in that it apparently has 2 names, the Klang Muang as seen on the sign approaching from the river, and another on a sign you see approaching from the other direction. A lot of the guests are Chinese, and they seem to use the other name. It's a nice hotel, relatively new and clean and well equipped. It's only lacking an elevator, which is significant in that I'm on the 4th floor. I'm happy to be up higher away from the street noise, but the Chinese guests on my floor are (thus far) quite loud and their kids are running back and forth in the hallway. I have a flat screen TV, and it gets 2 English channels. I was excited initially to see some news, but it's Fox News and the bias is way too obvious.
There is a nice market in this town, the Thasadej market, and lots of restaurants and coffee shops. Apparently there is a large expat population. I've seen a lot of European looking men, but no women.
I was trying to decide where to eat when I passed a Vietnamese restaurant that was mobbed. I figured it must be really good or really cheap, and decided to give it a
try. It was a set menu with sort of do-it-yourself spring rolls. I wasn't quite sure what to do, and rather impolitely watched the people nearby and followed their lead. It was good, but not great, and not cheap either.
I'm taking a layover day here tomorrow to do some sightseeing and do some planning.
Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 1,406 km (873 miles)
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