After spending another couple of days with the guys and giving farewell first to Esther and Stefan who were leaving early Thursday morning back to Vientiane from where Esther goes to Bangkok to catch her flight home and Stefan continues to Vietnam and then on Friday afternoon also saying bye to Uschi and Andy who were taking a bus north, continuing to Chiang Mai, Thailand I wanted to leave early morning today to try to get to the Laos – China border at Bo Ten as I was told that even one whole day was not enough to get there.

As per usual I didn’t get to leave until after noon as I slept in and then needed to do some basic maintenance on the bike. Next door I also bought a new front tyre of Thailand origin for USD 15. I needed to do it now as my current tyre is getting bolder and bolder and I can’t be sure what will happen when I get to the border, as there are several possibilities of which some of them might not offer another chances for tyre replacements for the following few thousand kilometers. I hope this tyre will fit. The diameter checks out but all the other numbers are completely different since they are in different format on my original and the new tyre.

So I set off at about 12:30PM and after a comparably easy ride I reached my destination just at dusk. Bo Ten is a small village where all the houses are still either bamboo or wooden and except of a number of trucks parked at the beginning of it is no different to other quiet villages in Laos. I found a guesthouse (the only one?) for 30, subsequently negotiated to 20 thousand Kip. I could not afford to pay more as that was my last money anyway if I still wanted to eat something tonight I had a big bowl of soup and vegetables for 5000 Kip. Strangely, soup seems to be the only type of food on offer in all of the about 10 restaurants I have found in the area. At this time I was left with the last 4700 Kip to try to get another bowl of soup tomorrow morning.

So tomorrow is the D day. I will attempt to get into China somehow. Based on the dim reports from other travelers I don’t give it much chance. However, the 200 US dollars I have on me could maybe help as I hear that Chinese officials are quite corrupt. If they at least let me in to transit somehow to Nepal that would be great. However even if they let me in under the condition that I won’t be roaming China I probably still couldn’t go through Tibet as most of it is an area forbidden to foreigners and there are apparently military checkpoints on the roads leading there to assure that. Well, after such recap of what I know the chances are really very slim. Anyway, now I’m here, about 100 meters from the border so I got to try tomorrow. In the case of the expected negative result of my attempt to get into china with my bike I would have to come back and try for the newly reported option – Myanmar visa, which apparently takes around 2 months to get and then one has to stick to pre-determined route and schedule. (This is news from Richard and Lisa [www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/richardandlisa] whose friends just went through Myanmar from India to Thailand in their Land Rower.) I would probably opt for this alternative, spending my time waiting in Laos and Thailand, rather than spending even more money to fly the bike and myself to Kathmandu, which is reported to cost about USD800 just for the bike.

(334km)