Laos border crossing

Early start to get to the border, which used to have a bad reputation for required bribes. It's all cleaned up now and I got through pretty well but there were some lessons to be learned.

Always carry American dollars and Euro in all kinds of smaller denominations, and make sure that they are super clean bills, no ink, no excessive folding, no tears whatsoever. I had one small black mark and it forced me to have to exchange 50 euros for $50 which at 1.09 normal exchange rate is not exactly a great deal, but it got me through the border. I also bought a SIM card for Thai baht and that worked out well at first.

Mapy.cz sends me a spotty island hopping route that wasn't on Google and it saves me about 35 km of riding. As I get to the supposed ferry there is nothing there. A guy comes walking by and I show him my map and I point where I need to go. He gestures with the bike? and I shake my head yes, and he waves me down to the beach, where he has a few boats hidden in the deep tall grasses. Yeah! What a way to get into Laos, by crossing the Mekong river on a small pointy boat. Legendary adventure!

Sudden consternation; the blue gps dot is gone from the map! Where am I? The Sim also stopped working. No form of reset works. I need to go back to the traditional method of tying landscape features to the map. I haul the bike up the steps and it turns out that I am in the middle of a touristy island with plenty of signs on the bicycle paths. It's a perfect solution but it's also a little bit of a letdown. The waterfalls are the attraction to Don Det island.Read more