The 24 hour day - Laos to Bangkok

Leg 4 finally underway!
We had driven the 4/500 metres from the Vietnam border to the Laos side!
I decided to give up the charade of sleep at 5.30am as I was in need of a toilet break. I got my shoes on, rummaged for toilet roll, fresh clothes (the ones I had been wearing were sweat soaked now, as well as my silk liner). In an optimistic mood, I also took shampoo and conditioner and toothpaste and toothbush.
I wondered off in the vague direction that I was pointed in by Steve. I got to the building to find the ladies locked, but the mens open.
Alex joined me, and used the facilities, although there was no water apparently.
Getting Alex to guard the door slightly ajar so I could see what I was doing, I managed to sort myself out. Bushing teeth by the car with a bottle of water afterwards.

The border was starting to buzz. A queue at the visa/immigration desk had formed although noone was moving between the borders yet.
The border guards had started to arrive, and were starting to look at our documents. Ian went to sort it out.
'Do you want the good news or the bad news?'
Vietnam had apparently stamped the cars in to the country for import, but had failed to stamp them out for export apparently, so to all intents and purposes, it looked like the cars should still be in Vietnam. Unable to raise our Vietnamese fixer on the phone, Ian set off back to the Vietnam border with the paperwork to try and get them to stamp the cars out.

Mopeds and goods on trolleys being pulled by people had started to come across the border, so we moved the cars out of their way, and the rest of the team went across to the cafe/restuarant to get some breakfast. Unfortunatley they didn't take Dollars. Only Vietnamese Dong, or Lao Kip. We hadn't got Kip yet, and Dong was very low in supply.
It afforded us all a can of fizzy each (the water bottles tamper rings were all broken so we assumed they had been refilled so avoided). Ahhh... 7up for breakfast.

Some border guards were having their breakfast on other tables, and they were conversing with the restaurant owners and waitresses in a jovial manner. I've no idea what they were saying!

Ian got back with the correctly stamped paperwork, and set about getting the cars in again. Despite Laos not taking Carnets, they happily enough filled them in for all the cars, and then signalled for us to get going on the road.
'Wait, I need insurance!' The border guards were perplexed why we had stopped again and were ushering us towards the barrier.
'I've got to go upstairs to sort it out. Back in a mo'
We parked up. The guards on the gate came to look at the cars. One of them even had an iphone - Alex started to chat to him in a geeky iphone way. 'Where come from?' Alex got the laminated map of the route out of the car and went over the route. 'Where you work?', 'Made in England?' he said pointing at the car 'yes' 'how much?' 'for this one?' (pointing at a disco) 'about £35000, £40000... pounds, sterling' 'I cannot afford' he said in a disapointed tone, Alex laughed, 'I cannot afford either!'.

Ian made it back to the cars, and the guards raised the barriers ready for us to depart.
Ian and Rachel in disco 5 were first out, followed by Alex and I in car 4 (I had sneekily blocked car 3 in :P ), Disco 3, and the Defender 1 in sweeper position.
I followed Ian down the road giggling as he figured out what side of the road he was supposed to be on.
Radios were switched on, and we were underway! properly!

As we started to get underway, we used all the tricks that we had observed in Vietnam - a toot of the horn when you are about to over take to warn the other drivers and scooters that you are there. A flash of the headlights if you are on the wrong side of the road and are going to complete the maneouvre (headlight flashing in South East Asia means 'i'm coming through' rather than the 'you go first' as it means in the UK - several times I curteousy flashed people to let them out only for them to slow down further - whoops! A real case of 'lost in translation').

As we made our way through numerous villages, it became apparent that Laos is much less densely populated than Hanoi - with much more forest, and noticeable far more trees - i guess the defoliants spread liberally over vietnam in the war were still affecting the number of old tall trees, and the difference was noticeable.
There was also less order to the crops. Rice paddies set out in a higgle-de-piggledy way, and many low land areas not culivated at all. In Vietnam every possible low land inch had been cramed full of paddy fields.
Houses on stilts were the vogue, as with Vietnam, but very few had glass in the windows, instead having netting to cover the openings. Some houses looked decidedly cobbled together, with the odd house here and there that had obviously had a fair amount spent on it.
The locals were mostly under the houses between the stilts cooking things or just lazing around - similar to vietnam having a midday siesta, although I don't think I saw many attending the fields later in the day.

In places the road had disintegrated in short stretches, which the Land Rovers gobbled up with absolutely no problems. Animals were everwhere, and not fenced in.
Several times dogs, waterbuffulo, geese, goats, even children would be sat on the road either moving, or at times sat there stubbornly without even moving.

We were on the road towards Savannakhet and stopped for fuel before heading north on the road towards Vientienne. We pulled up and had just started getting the first two cars filled when a mechanic appeared from round the back waving at us. 'Come' 'come'. Alex disappeared down the side which was their workshop, and came back pretty quickly 'Guys - they've got a Land Rover down here'
A 'gaggle' of the group disappeared to take a look. It was a 1950's Series 2 (i think!) which was the forerunner to defender. It had obviously been there a while, and wasn't running, but it's amazing to see - the rear boot handle being exactly the same as the 2008 defender sat out the front being refuelled.
It would be amazing to get even the smallest glimpse in to the history of a car like that to find out how it had ended up in the workshop of a Laos garage.

We got back on the road after a pit stop, and headed north on the road to Vientienne.
Villages got fewer and further between, although it might have been due to the obvious signs of flood either side of the road and the road on its own causeway effectively through the vegetation.

'no horseplay on the radio' Ian reminded us.
'What time does the Thai/Laos border shut at?' my guidebook told me 10pm. 'one of the fixers says it's 5pm, the other said it was 10pm' Mark replied. hmmm. 5pm would be a push. We were making progress at about 70km per hour, and still had half the distance to go (about 300km) to go with 3 hours til 5pm.
I was hoping the guidebook was right. But it turned out not to be. The border (the 'friendship bridge' did shut at 10pm for pedestrians, but 5pm for vehicles.

'Well, we'll get as far as we can'.

News came back from Car 3 who had been in contact with the fixer on the Thai side that he was keeping the border open for us.
We continued towards the border which was beyond Vientienne.
We hit Vientienne just before 6pm. We took a turn for the friendship bridge, but endedup on backroads, and had to stop frequently to check we had gone the right way. the locals all us onwards.
We found a major road that was marked on the map, and felt comfy following it's directions, but somehow missed the turning for the bridge (with it's large marble clad gates... whoops).
The road went from tarmac to mud with pot holes filled with water. The local traffic was slowly picking it's way through, but the Land Rovers could take the road at a faster pace. Picking our way through the traffic, I made a serious error in judgement passing a pickup truck filled with locals on the back, and managed to create a tidal wave that covered them. I felt really really bad - I thought i'd slowed down enough to prevent such a splash, but obviously I was wrong. I coasted along... I wanted to stop to say sorry, but Ian was already 400m down the road, and they probably wouldn't understand what I was trying to say and it could get nasty... I carried on with a sick feeling in my stomach.

To make matters worse, it turned out that despite asking 2 more times and been pointed further down the mud road, we had gone the wrong way. A three point turn, and we were heading back the way we came, back past the 'tidal wave' incident. I slowed down (the jerry cans were banging about on the roof). Ian and Malcolm bounded off in to the distance with Car 3 tucked up behind us.
To my relief, the angry locals had disappeared, but I sheepishly picked my route, and a slow one. On the road ahead, people on the road side had obviously got splashed, but one guy was just laughing.

It was around then that we realised car 4 had a rather restricted range on the radio (the antenna had been knocked off loading in Lao Cai), and we lost contact with Car 5 and Car 1. It was just aswell Car 3 was behind us to relay messages as we lost visual and had no idea where they had gone.
Car 5 and Car 1 were trying any which way to get on to the bridge, but couldn't find the entrance.
We waited to join back up with the others and Car 3 relayed the message that we'd lost radio contact. A local lady on a moped finally directed us to the entrance, and we sighed with relief after losing 30 minutes just driving round lost when the border was being held for us.

The paperwork on the Laos side was underway, and Malcolm took the chance to check his jerry cans, and ours (securing them as they had indeed come loose). Everyone else took to the windows and headlights with water and paper after our offroading. The cars look properly used now.

We got the ok to go, and drove up to a set of traffic lights. eventually they turned green and we drove up on to the bridge - it seems the traffic lights system is used to take you from the right hand side of the road (Laos = LHD), and puts you on the left hand side (Thailand = RHD) automatically.
We pulled up on the other side where we met our Thai fixer. There followed the smoothest border crossing, with the fixer taking the documents, disappearing for about 30 mins, before his return, and we were ready to go.

The fixer jumped in with Mark and Steve in Car 3, and after a stop at a petrol station for the cars, and pies for us (as well as picking up some familiar sweets), we were on our way to Bangkok.


We kept going, with the gaps between driver changes shortening and shortening. The Thai police had random check points where we would sometimes get through, sometimes not. At about 2am Alex and I got pulled, but the rest of the team got through ok. Realising that all the paperwork was in car 5 we had a little panic, but all the bemused police wanted to know was where we had come from, and where we were going to. They laughed at the replies, and let us on our way.
At the next stop, I got out of the car and just couldn't walk in a straight line. Time to give up before I crash I thought.

Alex managed the remaining 3 hours, and we arrived at our hotel in Bangkok at 5am.
After a clothes washing session, I fell in to bed as the sun came up.