Crossing the Chinese-Lao border

Chinese immigration

50 days in China, it was time to cross the Chinese-Lao border in Mohan/Boten. We slept the night before on the Chinese side in one of Mohan's many hotels. That night we declared the end of Chinese food. We felt like having something different, something more spicy and fresh. Time for Thai food! What a taste, what a difference to the Chinese taste! And more good food was to come just across the border.

Before we continued to the border we had rice noodle soup for breakfast. Baozi are no longer available, people eat rice noodle soups in this part of China. The Chinese immigration office was just a few hundred meters away at the end of the road. Buses from Kunming or Mengla on their way to Luang Prabang lined up, waiting for the passengers to get through immigration procedures. As we were not allowed to bring the bicycles into the immigration building, we went in one after the other to get our stamp-out. The immigration building is a top modern building with latest electronic devices. To speed-up the process there was a computer that scanned our passports and printed the pre-filled departure cards. Generally speaking, a fantastic idea but the machine failed. The computer was unable to recognise our first names or passport numbers. After the first official had tried with the computer, another official tried his luck as well. Same result. They must have lost their confidence in that poor machine.

Outside Chinese tourists made their typical "victory" pose by the pole with the Chinese flag and took photographs. You could see the laid-back attitude of the officials here, nobody intervened. Anywhere else in China it would be impossible to take photographs at an official check-point or border crossing.

The chinese part was done and it was very easy. We cycled some hundred meters further and arrived at the Lao immigration building. The difference was jaw-dropping! While the Chinese have a multi-level, top-modern building, the Lao people have nothing more than a small and old building. Their electronic equipment wasn't the best either. It reminded us of the Kazakh-Chinese border in Korgas.

Laos immigration on the left

At the border we filled in a visa form that required our "pass sport number", one passport photo, 270 Yuan per person and we got our visa-on-arrival right away without any problems. One counter further our passports were stamped. Strangely many Asian people put money into their passports. A French couple and us didn't imitate them but we got our stamp-in anyway. Zai Jian China! Sabai-Dee Laos! You are country number 7!