NAKHON RATCHASIMA – VIENTIANE

In the morning, before the heat is up, it’s the best time to drive. The roads are very good, and gas is quite cheap: ninety-five goes for 28 baht per liter, which is approximately 90 cents. Some hundred kilometers before the Laos border we are getting caught by the police again. They are asking for our documents but it’s actually just a formality, most of all they are curious about our route and technical equipment. Right after this, hard rain begins; we have to drive aside and put our raincoats on, which we haven’t done since Western Mongolia. Even the rain is pleasant here: feels like a warm shower. At 3PM we are already at the border control point. Thailand and Laos are divided by Mekong, the greatest river of Asia, and in this place, the bridge connects two countries; on one side there is border control area of Thailand, on the other side the one of Laos. No queue. We have to close our ATA carnet, so it’s good that local customs worker understands what do we need. Again, there is a mistake: a customs officer in Ulaanbaatar has signed the wrong rows, actually, the ones the Thai customs officer was supposed to sign. For a moment they discuss it and then they make an awesome decision: they just correct it and put their own seals and signature. Wow, they could have sent us back to Ulaanbaatar! 

Sabaidi! 

Everyone is smiling here, nobody is in a hurry. Here we even don’t show our carnet since we are not sure it will be closed properly at the border control point on the other side of Laos, somewhere in a jungle. Nobody is asking for it either. We fill in some sort of declaration for temporary entry permit and happily enter Democratic Republic of Laos. Scenery is totally different here: dust, dirt and nice chaos around. It’s about twenty kilometers to Vientiane, so we drive in after dark already and quickly find a nice old Colonial style hotel not far from the Victoria Arc. With Laotian tuktuk, called jumbo here, we head for dinner. The driver is being polite and offers us some ganja: allegedly, it’s free to use it here everywhere but at the police circuit. In a pub we meet two Hollanders: Sanders and his girlfriend are hanging around the world on their Defender for nine months already and only plan to return home in a year. We are chatting until the late evening and haven’t talked everything out, so we decide to meet each other again, at the breakfast.