Change Direction Ahead

December 11, 2025

Pak Lai, Laos to Thailand

It was still dark and we were just emerging from bed when we heard young monks singing their little song of thanks to alms givers. I dove for the door to our balcony and quickly took a couple of fuzzy photos and one video. Their robes are so colorful in the gloomy foggy light. How could they not always be photogenic? And for some reason lately every time I have photographed a clutch of monks there has been a fuzzy dog among them as well.

In the near darkness from our hotel room balcony.

Images secured inside my iPhone I proceeded to peel and cut up two mangoes for our muesli breakfast. Having such a meal in our room saves time from going to a restaurant. The Lao are not super early people and to get the fires going and make noodle soup is never a very early meal. We are always on the road earlier if we have our own meal. That depends mostly on finding a papaya but for some reason we didn't see any for days but there were some nice mangoes in the market for a reasonable price. In fact, it was one of the only bargains of our entire time in Laos. Two for a dollar and so so good.

There is a lot going on in our bathroom!

We set out to see how far we would get towards the Thai border. Yes, we were done with Laos. It was short and Luang Prabang was sweet. The rest of Laos was anywhere from irritating to downright awful; the roads impossible for cyclists. Ironically, the road we turned onto towards a very very obscure border crossing was in perfect condition. It was as we remembered Hwy. 4 from Xayaburi to Pak Lai and beyond years ago but this little road had not seen the heavy truck traffic. We were loving it although there were some very steep hills. There was very little traffic.

We see a lot of evidence of shattered dreams.

We thought we'd just go about 15 miles to the only guest house before the border. The next guest house was a few miles inside of Thailand and if we were to go for it that would be a total of 28 miles, not a long distance but we didn't want to get trapped at the border not able to cross because we weren't absolutely sure we could cross at this obscure and remote border since we had never heard of any foreigners doing it. But, when we got to the road to the guest house we saw the old sign with an arrow down a dirt road and we didn't even stop to check it out. We whizzed past and I think Andrea might have even used that short and complete sentence once again, "Nope."

I always expect more from people in SE Asia but there is little garbage pickup and we never see land fills or much in the way of recycling especially in Laos.

But people know that glass and metal does not burn and plastic should not be burned.

It started drizzling making the road super slick. When we had to get off and push, our shoes slipped on the asphalt. But it was also quite beautiful. We were in an area of farms, hills, wilderness, lots of birds singing in the rain, frogs croaking and waving farmers in their homemade looking contraptions. Everyone was surprised to see two foreigners on bikes but immediately welcoming with smiles and waves. The countryside was lush and beautiful, made even more so by the fact that we were on our way to Thailand. At least we were hoping we'd make it across.

We love these little roadside rest stops.

This rest stop hut had some interesting nails made specifically for holding down stuff like bamboo matting.

Chopped up tapioca root drying in the sun. Tapioca has no nutritional value at all, it pays nearly nothing for farmers to grow it, it's labor intensive and to dry it you need vast areas of cement! This stuff should be outlawed.

I kept checking my altimeter as we were going higher and higher. We figured the actual border would be the high point. The quiet of the area put us in good moods too, not just the fact that we might be leaving Laos. We came upon great Lao music being blasted from an old wooden farmhouse. We love Lao music and we stopped and I did a little video of the area with the soundtrack ready made.

I kind of loved this house. The setting was superb.

Then, out of the blue, and obscured by grasses, was a stop sign. A little guard house was next to it but nobody was in it. If there had been he would have surely been asleep. There was nobody around. We figured we were getting close to Lao Immigration and yes, a few meters more and there it was but there was a store on the right that pulled us in first. We wanted to try to spend our Lao Kip. It's unheard of for us to stop and buy any sort of canned drink but we had two small cans of refrigerated Birdy coffee, a can of coconut juice that was amazingly wonderful and then I bought two large cans of Beer Lao which I stuffed into a pannier weighing me down more than ever. All of that stuff came to less than $3. I always thought remote places, especially right before a border crossing, were the most expensive places to buy anything. I still had loads of Lao Kip leftover however. It's always hard to plan exactly. It has happened to leave a country with none of their currency but that is rare.

The people at the store, one of them a policeman, were super friendly and curious. They always open up a lot if you just speak a tiny bit of their language. I understood that they wanted to know where we had traveled and how old I was. They were pretty impressed at my advanced age and still on a bike going up those nasty hills. They had no idea how much I had needed that Birdy coffee and coconut juice. They said I must be very "sa-trong" (strong). So often the Thais and Lao take an English word that starts with an 'st' and they always separate it out and add that 'a' in there. I think it's so funny. Sa-prite is a good one.

Anyway, we went off sa-tronger after that pitt sa-top.

I like that the Lao and Thai don't mess around when it comes to cigarette packaging.

There were two immigration officers, one at the window and the other walking around looking like he had absolutely nothing to do. The guy at the window was a bit stiff. I suppose he had to act the part of an officer in charge of that border, which he was, but it was such a sleepy border that he could have let his hair down a bit. I had.

He asked me where I was going! Why, why, why did he ask that? There was only one road, we were on it and it led in the direction of Thailand. It wasn't the border with Zimbabwe! So, I told him, "Thailand." If the guy wanted to throw his weight around he sure needed to get more creative about it. But he seemed serious as if he could throw his weight around and maybe wanted to throw his weight around so I held back on the Zimbabwe comment. After all, I didn't want to be denied exit from Laos. Then he demanded 20,000 Kip ($1). He didn't say what it was for but I knew that it was for the all important Immigration Beer Lao Fund, or, The Lao Corruption Fee (LCF). He did say that the 20,000 was for both of us! He could have gone all the way and we never would have known. I guess there are advantages to exiting through the most low key border crossing in the country, at least the one that was seemingly working for foreigners to exit through.

As I walked back towards Andrea I whispered to her that I paid the LCF for both of us. She later thanked me for telling her. The guy didn't ask Andrea where she was heading. It was a sleepy place. I checked my passport to see if I had actually been stamped out of the country. It's a procedure one must never omit.

Then we were on the road again in the same forested area but we were essentially in no man's land - the land between, the land that neither country owned, although that is probably not true. There was another big hill that we had to push up. It was quite a ways before we saw anything more and what we saw next was a sign that said, "Change Direction Ahead." No way, we were not returning to Laos. Then, a sign that read, "Left Hand Traffic". We stopped in the weeds and changed our mirrors to the right side of our handlebars and we switched to riding on the left side of the road. It meant we were nearing Thailand and their immigration building but before that the road turned to gravel. I mean, really rough gravel. It was so unlike any other crossing into Thailand that we have ever experienced. It was so unlike the Thais to have such a crappy entrance to their country. I figured it was a touchy entry point and they kept the road rough on purpose to slow down drug runners or something. There had to be a good reason. The road was terrible right up to the Immigration building.

Changing my mirror to the right side and trying not to step in the patch of sand burrs.

It's always a joy to talk with the Thai Immigration officials because they are always happy, joking around, speak a bit of English and they love Americans. It was a breeze at this particular border crossing and when we were done with the official stamping we nearly jumped for joy. It's not like it had been a bad time in Laos but.......it had been a bad time in some of Laos. It's always a happy entrance into Thailand. We checked the stamp in our passports to see if they gave us 60 days and they had.

The road soon got much better and we flew down the hills. The high point had been somewhere in that no man's land. After the border I think it was about five miles to a guest house. We found it on a main highway that was smooth as butter and we rolled in to the guest house. There was no one around but the keys were in all the doors of all the rooms, all in a row. I looked in a couple and all I saw was a very thick heavy table and huge stump stools or a long bench out of the same wood. It was very strange. I opened each of nine doors and all the rooms were the same, just different shaped huge thick, heavy tables and benches. I have never seen anything like that before. I couldn't figure out why there were no beds. Normally, the room would have a bed not a big table. In one of them I walked down the hallway a bit and saw a door but I just figured that had to be the bathroom and I didn't open it.

Andrea and I discussed the situation and decided we should find a normal guest house with a bed. Those tables looked incredibly hard and I knew I sure wouldn't sleep well on one of them. We checked the map and saw that there were a couple other guest houses in the area and we were just about to leave when a man appeared from somewhere in the rear of the property. He even spoke a few words of English. He asked if we wanted a room and I said, "Yes, but....." He asked if we wanted one bed or two. I was so confused. Was he asking if we wanted one table or two! He opened up the first door and told me to go in. I went all the way back and for the first time opened the door back there fully expecting to see a bathroom. But it was a bedroom with no windows, so odd! Then I saw another door at the rear of the hallway that went outside. Outside there was a separate little bathroom. I have never seen a guest house quite like it. Yes, yes, we want a room. He was a very kind man. I shoved some Thai Baht into his hand and we were set. We asked him where a restaurant was and he showed us on our map.

We immediately went to eat a mile down the road before it was going to get dark. The restaurant was good enough and we were happy to have some food. We rode back to our guest house with the enormous table in the front room and the very second we shut the door we heard something strange. It seemed to be coming from the roof. Could that be rain!? We both were so perplexed because we had just shut the door! I opened the door again and it was just pouring down out there. How lucky we had been! We had no idea it was about to open up like that. A perfect ending to a wonderful day. We had made it through the most remote border crossing we have ever attempted and we made it all the way to Thailand and not Zimbabwe. A great day!

lovebruce

It's always pretty dismal to not have a window.

You would not believe how much these weigh. Just to move the stool a few inches you can throw your back out. The other one does not move at all.

Today's ride: 28 miles (45 km)
Total: 452 miles (727 km)

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Steve Miller/GrampiesWhew, you made it out.
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1 month ago

Scott AndersonYou two are giving me ulcers. Let's have some relaxed, vanilla days for a change, OK?
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1 month ago

Bruce LellmanTo Scott AndersonScott, I actually love this sort of travel. I love an adventure. Even if I suffer a bit, I'd still rather have a good adventure than just about anything. It's nothing compared to what I did in the '70's in Asia.
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1 month ago

Bo LeeI have to say, I really love seeing all the different guest houses! Thanks for sharing them.
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1 month ago

Andrea BrownTo Bo LeeWe’ve had some great ones! There are so many to choose from here in Thailand and each one has pluses and minuses but having hot water and air conditioning and a fridge is the norm. A reasonably comfortable bed, and of course cleanliness and we’re good.
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1 month ago