Laos

I had spent the last night in Chiang Mai with Lucy in some tiny bar with free pool. We'd had some cocktails and a few rounds of the game before we'd gone back to the guest house to get some rest. The next morning, Vanessa had already left for good, we took Lucy to the bus station from where she'd return to Sukhothai. Now it was only the two of us, Arno and I, and we were making our way north. We'd come up with the plan to cross into Laos in the far north via ferry, but we were still uncertain, if we'd be able to take the car across the border.

We were taking a smaller road, supposedly more scenic, but we were still advancing quickly. We had a short stop at a small waterfall that had an amazing touch to it as it's stream bed was bright white from limescale. Some people had a picnic by the falls and invited us to eat with them, but we refused, a little restless and a little unsure what to reply. As excuse I explained that we still had a long way to go today.


There were not too many mountains in our way to slow us down and we arrived in Chiang Rai early afternoon and started looking for a hotel. We checked every place in town before settling into a nice room for a bargain.


After we had gotten some rest and food, we went into the rather quiet town for some entertainment. We started at the local discothek, but that was still closed. To pass the time we had a look into the Teepee Bar, a spot mentioned in Arno's Lonely Planet. It was maybe worth a short drink and the place was outfitted quite cool, but we didn't meet anyone interesting. The discothek was now open, but lacking people desperately. We decided to have another drink in another bar before going to sleep. The next morning, we would start early towards the border.

It was only another 100 kilometers to Chiang Khong, but the road was getting worse, the further we got. We arrived in the border town around noon and started with the formalities. We found out, we had to go to the customs for the car to be exported. When we arrived at the customs house, everyone there had lunch break. We didn't bother them and went to get a meal ourselves before returning and starting the paperwork.

The car was registered in Tuk's name and that posed a problem now. She needed to be there to fill out the correct form. There was no other possibility, at first. Then, after bargaining with the very polite and nice officers and after ringing up Tuk, she was able to fill out the form in Sukhothai and fax it to the office. Only two hours later, Tuk and my brother had organized the correct form and faxed it. I only had to put my signature in and wait for the officers to fill everything into their electronic form, then I was done. That had been easier than I had expected.

We went back to the border post, where the officer told us, the car needed to go through immigration as well. Our spirits dropped a bit, but as customs had been so smooth, we were in hope to have no trouble with immigration as well. Our hopes were not disappointed. A nice officer at the immigration office looked at our case, sent us to make some copies and processed our request within half an hour. Now we were really good to leave.


We went to the border post to get our stamps. The car papers were now okay and we parked right at the Mekong shore to wait for the ferry. I asked around to find out when it was due to leave and found that there was noone operating the ferry at the moment and the operators were supposedly at some hotel in town. Officially, we had already left the country, but now it seemed, we might not be able to physically leave it.

I went into town to find the hotel while Arno stayed with the car. Just as I arrived at the hotel, he called me. The ferry operators had returned and were offering us a last trip. They told us, the offices on the Lao side would close very soon. I grabbed the next Tuk Tuk to return to the car as fast as possible. Since we were the only vehicle on the ferry, they wanted double the normal price. We bargained a bit and managed to save some Baht, but still payed for having the ferry to ourselves.


The crossing only took a couple of minutes. The ferry went upstream, steered between the emerging rocks in the middle of the river and hit the shore on the Lao side. An officer was already awaiting us and sent us into the customs office. A couple of Baht and some minutes later we had the Lao customs papers and were going into town to find the immigration post. The visa on arrival was no problem and done in minutes, the car didn't need any further attention. We had made it across the border in one day and the car was with us. Everything had worked out unbelievably smooth.

We had a look at the guest houses next and ended up checking into the guest house right next to the immigration post. It was the best room we had seen in a while and we still paid less than we had paid in Thailand. The guys at the front office invited us to join them for the diskothek that night and we gladly accepted. We went to grab some food in a restaurant right at the Mekong shore and got some rest before we started into the night.


Mii knocked at our door around nine and we went down to meet his brother and a friend of his in front of the guest house. We were going to a karaoke discothek not far from the town. When we arrived, the dancefloor was crowded and the place looked promising. A second look revealed it wasn't as crowded as it initially seemed, but the atmosphere was great. Soon Mii was on stage singing and everyone else was dancing.

Due to the lack of crispy pork, a plate of fried cow lung was served. It was crispy as well and tasted quite good, good enough that I started eating it away like chips. On stage the Laos had started a group dance as it is also common in small towns and villages in europe and would rather be described best as line dance. Many false steps later, we had learned to join them in the dance and even keep the pace. Even though it was cold, after a few minutes dancing like that we had to take our sweaters off.

In a place like that, farangs cannot hide. Everyone was looking at us, but especially two older men that were accompanied by two young girls. They greeted us in English, but our response was the ususal and easy Lao greeting "sabai dee." A sentence later, the convesation had switched to Thai for some reason and it turned out, the two were businessmen from Bangkok and strangers to the place just like we were, but they soon left and so did most of the people after a while. We decided to move on to another discothek, but not before Arno hadn't been on stage performing some well-known english song without having a clue of the lyrics or melody.


We got to the next place quickly, as it was only minutes away, already on the way back to town. It seemed as if we were the only ones who had arrived by car, but in front of the door a myriad of scooters were parked. Inside, the place was crowded and the floor already flooded with spilled beer. The music was western Hip Hop and everyone was having a good time. We had just gotten our first drinks and started dancing, when Mii advised us all to leave. Someone had broken a bottle of beer, someone else was angry about it and trouble lay ahead. Everyone knew and the place got emptier by the minute. As we started the car and drove off, already some people were getting at each other in front of the door.


The night had ended suddenly, but we didn't mind much, as it had been a good one. We went to bed and were covered with the extra blankets we had obtained for the night this time. We both didn't wake due to the cold as we had the nights before, but slept through under the warm soft covers to awake fully refreshed the next morning.