Chiang Mai to the Laos Border and Back

Learning from our previous mishap we left our Treehouse Penthouse with enough time to avoid another night ride. We returned to Chiang Mai and stayed in the hotel from our last visit to the city. A lazy night was interrupted by a crash. Eric had managed to break the faucet and a strong stream of water was shooting into the bathroom. The one on duty member of the hotel staff entered the room but wasn’t phased by the growing water level. Eric, Tyler and I held a towel against the hole to prevent the room from becoming an aquarium. Eventually another member of the hotel staff arrived in her car to shut the water supply off. We finished the night in a different room.

The next day Eric took off to Bangkok to start his trip home. Tyler and I began our two day ride to the Laos border. We spent our first day in Chiang Rai, a city where we were one of the few travelers. After resting from our 5 hour ride we roamed the streets of the Sunday market. In the center of the market a band played slow traditional sounding songs while a large group of locals danced in a circle. Some attempted to coax us into joining the dance but we didn’t want to show then up.

There was also this cool clock tower in Chaing Rai.

The next day we made it to the Friendship Bridge IV which connects Chiang Khong, Thailand with Ban Houayxay, Laos. A confusing interaction with the border portal resulted in us being denied entrance. It seemed the shop we had purchased the bikes at hadn’t transfered the title into our names.

We checked into a hotel in order to think about what do to next. Some Internet research seemed to show that although the bikes were not in our name the owner had given us permission to use them. The next day we walked into every official looking building to ask if crossing the border was viable. The first person we talked to gave us some official looking stamps and sent us to the dock to cross by ferry. The workers at the ferry said it was impossible to cross with our bikes. An immagration office in town said that we were fine we just needed to cross at the bridge.

Two of the three places we went to said we should be able to cross so we decided to give the bridge abother try. Our hope was the stamps would be the magic ticket.

The border agents were not as impressed in our stamps as we were. The denied us and weren’t pleased to see us again without the proper paperwork. Our plan of biking through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia had hit a significant roadblock. We decided to drive back to Chaing Mai and reevaluate our plan.