Day 6 - Khon Kean to Vientiane

Woke up to a 12 degree temperature. Made French toast for breakfast today. We were damn lazy to ride because of the cold.

It was freaking cold on the roads and it's about 180km to the Thai-Lao friendship bridge.

We had lunch at Udon Thani town. After lunch, we got pulled over by the traffic police. Luckily they just asked us where we were from and where we were heading to. No money changed hands.

Another 60km and we were at Nongkai and the Thai-Lao friendship bridge.

Clearing Thai immigration and customs was a breeze.

Once at the Laotian side, we had to submit immigration form as per normal. This was easy

Getting out bikes across Laotian customs proved more tricky.

Firstly, we had to Collect the temporary customs import form at counter 3 and get our documents checked at room 15. 

Next we had to Pay 200B at counter 2 and collect the temporary vehicle import form from counter 3. Last, we had to get customs chief to endorse it bad we were good to go.

We puchased AGL insurance at 120B for 1 week.

Vientiane is approximately 20km away and we got there fairly quickly. Laotian vehicles are left hand driven and it took abit for Jimmy to get use to riding on the right hand side of the road. 

Once into town, we went to the money changer and became instant millionaires.

400USD = 3,200,000 kips.

We checked into Syri2 hotel for 100,000kips a night and went out to the night bazaar along the Mekong River. We didn't buy anything coz there was nothing interesting.

Dinner cost us a whooping 145,000kips and I'm already getting fed up with the currency denomination. Why can't they just take away 3 zeros from every note??

We had only 2 beers at Bo Pen Nyang bar before calling it a night. Boring and very cold night.