"It opens at 8 am, or you have to pay a convenience fee" a British couple backpacking tell us. They are waiting by the passport control.
A few minutes later, we are in line for the exit stamp from Laos. Through the door, we are then told we are not allowed to cycle across the friendship bridge and no man's land. We buy a ticket, 25 baht each and pay 100 baht per bike. Not really that much, 35 baht to a dollar, just the inconvenience of unloading the bikes and getting them into the baggage compartment of the bus. Then reloading the bikes to go through passport control and entry stamp for Thailand. Patrick is nervous about where the stamp will be, he has only one page left that we need for the Burma visa until a new passport in Bangkok. It all works out though. We see two cyclists cycling across the bridge toward Laos.
Thailand drives on the left side, so we have to get used to that again. We head to Chiang Khong, stop for coffee and breakfast and head upstream along the Mekong. Across the river we can see the town we stayed in last night, not more then five hundred meters away after cycling 20km. All thanks to the new bridge.
The road "undulates" quite a bit, no easy cruising along the river for us. There is one particular steep and hot climb of about 300 meters vertical, then a downhill and mostly flat to Chiang Saen. We find a motel-style guesthouse for 400 bath, about 12 dollars. No more Beer Lao, we must switch to Chang, Leo or Singha. In the evening we walk along the Mekong where street vendors have set up their food stalls and have a barbecued fish, shrimp and sticky rice.
Morning fog over the Mekong. We have to ride about 10km south to cross the new Friendship Bridge.
