How NOT to travel from Vientiane to Nong Khai

After more than six months based almost entirely in the Lao capital, teaching and writing, I opted to have a “cheap weekend” due to my vacation being unpaid and my propensity to haemorrhage cash here disproportionate to the often risible pricing. Given that I have a multiple entry visa I figured this would be a healthy change of scene. With the exception of the tiny “overtime fee” (ie fine) my costs would theoretically be negligible.

My housemate Hamm was celebrating his 22nd that evening and the idea of my place being rammed with a hundred young revellers and an industrial sound rig was absolutely unappetising and another mitigating factor for the mission. Ten years back I’d have been in there balls-deep but things evolve. The loose plan was to loaf around for the day, stay at a $10 guesthouse and return recharged. You know what they say, though, about the best laid plans...

Eschewing the $2 bus I rented a half-decent mountain bike and crammed my Diesel bag to the very brim. Foolishly including my Net Book meant I couldn’t use the front basket for fear of its death via potholes and within seconds of leaving Avenue Lane Xang I was sweating like a rapist with this dead weight slung across my back.

Despite bearing such a load, the one crucial object not included was a map and within less than five minutes I stopped to ask a policeman directions. Better said, policemen : they congregate by the half-dozen tooled up with sidearms and semi-automatic rifles in a sentry box either sleeping, watching movies or, occasionally, pressed to actually do something. Upon reaching for my bike I strode face-on into a lamp-post. Although my cheeks felt swollen like a melon there was no damage and it was only by laughing that I avoided whizzing home instantly. Already feeling like Nielsen in the catastrophe scene of “Naked Gun” I was unaware it was only just beginning.

Dusting myself down I saddled up and, with the sunniest of tunes pulsing from the iPod, set off singing with vim. Since each person I passed viewed me like a bona fide alien anyway I thought that this, something I would never do at home, could attract no further attention. Although the round trip was only around 50km, each person I told about the mooted jaunt looked at me as though I’d announced I was running for President.

The remorseless mercury-melting temperature combined with my chunky bag meant enforced pitstops four or five times for a green cream soda, a towel down and ten minutes of welcome shade. After perhaps 10 km I questioned why the going had suddenly become onerous. There was no incline, I hadn’t travelled far but upon looking behind I was confronted with a burst tyre. The norm in this type of situation is that no realistic choices are up for grabs but, in a rare twist of serendipity, I found myself literally opposite two wizened old men mending a motorbike. Having been consistently ripped off since arrival in SE Asia I imagined that they would view a helpless farang bereft of options and charge like a wounded bull. New inner tube: $2.

Actually laughing aloud I (incorrectly) assumed my luck had upshifted and cranked up some blaring hip-hop, heading at pace towards the Thai/Lao Friendship Bridge to the dulcet delivery of Game. If you ever find yourself at this border under no circumstances whatsoever use the bathroom. By comparison the toilet down which Renton swims in “Trainspotting” resembles the presidential suite at the Burj Al Arab. I was almost physically sick upon entry, pissed all over the wall in rage and exited choking.

With at least ten people ahead of me in the queue I started to complete my exit form and, seeing me do so, the Lao behind unashamedly shouldered in front of me. Were she male I would have been equipped with a far more direct strategy but felt that aside from loudly bleating to the Americans behind about the egregious rudeness and pig ignorance of a certain impatient cretin now in front of me there was little to be done. A “Fucking HO” and universal hand gesture as she departed was ineffectual but at least minorly satisfying and better than no reaction at all. (Were I at the desk needing to rack up the document I could understand; most of us, however, are perfectly able to fill in our names and passport numbers in the time it takes for a single member of staff to process ten people through a mobbed zone.)

Set off at pace on the right-hand until the sight of the ubiquitous Toyota truck approaching me head-on suggested I should switch lanes before being mashed up like Hamm was last week by a (standard) drunken driver who predictably fled the scene. The centre of this road has a gargantuan raised strip which proves no barrier whatsoever to cars quite needlessly and routinely overtaking so I rolled with the narrow segment of pavement. This being Laos, I had first to lift my bike over a massive barrier and, no more than a few hundred metres along, encountered another obstacle which was simply too high to hump the GT over so it was back onto Death Row...

Bewildered as I approached Nong Khai proper I had no clue, being mapless, as to where to go or what to do. After peddling for several kilometres down a featureless main drag – all I managed were a few snaps of Vespa scooters for a friend and huge fan – I was by now nearing clinical dehydration. No problem, I thought, and whipped into the nearest shop to purchase some liquid. When I lobbed a $10 bill at the cashier she giggled and shook her head. Now, no less than three guides had made the unequivocal statement that the US dollar carried equal weight to the Thai baht. Since I’m paid in greenbacks I obviously didn’t bother visiting the currency exchange.

After at least a dozen such abortive efforts and becoming hotter, wetter and more angry in equal measure I resorted to offering the final till-jockey the whole $10 for a 50 cent drink. No dice. Instead, I was directed to a soulless Tesco Lotus way out of town. Given my luck that day I elected to head off down the wrong side of the road and when I went to traverse the bastard I found it was bisected by a ravine-like drop forcing me to backtrack and, finally, enter somewhere I had every confidence of securing a beverage...

The innards of this colossus stank like the multiple open drains in Vientiane and, smugly trotting to the till with about eight litres of assorted drinks, the servitor gave the same mute head inclination and motioned me listlessly towards a bureau de change. This was rammed and, in the sole stroke of fortune that day, someone handed me their numbered ticket meaning I gained ten or eleven places. (After that morning’s queue abuse it was time to guiltlessly exact my revenge.) Sadly, only two of the many desks were manned – it reminded me of my hometown post office or NatWest bank in that respect – and a young girl prised out one of the largest stacks of cash I’ve yet seen asking for US$25000 in return. Obviously this was no swift process and I could only look on in vague amusement – if almost dying of thirst – as the comic transaction took place. Levied a ruthless level of commission I was, on the verge of explosion, finally able to slake my thirst. All my change was given in coins rendering it impossible to re-exchange them and while I can palm off baht readily in Laos only notes reign here so nobody wants foreign discs.

Only one sensible route lay ahead which was directly back home.

Upon finally regaining my house I slammed down on my bed and upended my bag. Although I no longer smoke weed, out tumbled a fat bud not large enough to land me the promised execution writ large over all signage at the border but substantial enough to have guaranteed a day even worse than that which I endured. If the inconceivably rude and unhelpful Thais manning this crossing are supposed to be the welcoming face extended to visitors I shiver to imagine how I’d have been treated by the bad boys...

Still, I shall be returning only this time armed with a gallon of water, no computer, some money I may actually be able to use and a map.