Day 45 – Luang Nam Tha, Laos to Mengla, Yunnan, China

Off through the rice paddies to the Chinese border at Boten, 40km north, but with a short stop in the town to dispose of our remaining kip. We decide the best thing would be a bottle of scotch from a village store, where the choice is an array of bottles of Royal Tartan, “Experted from Australia, Smooth and Mellon (sic) or Johnny Walker Black Label, “Singapore Duty not paid”, we opt for the latter although our whisky connoisseur is not convinced. Still at -15 on the Tibetan plateau it might be preferable to yak butter tea. A bottle of Penfolds 389 and a St Emillion grand cru, 1997 swallow our remaining Kip.

Laos has certainly been the most interesting so far, supposedly a socialist country but one where the government doesn’t seem to have much impact on anyone. One zealous party official, deciding that in the best Marxist tradition, the people needed to give up their spiritual worship which was too backward, decided that to eradicate such worship he would call all the spirits together to a meeting one evening, where he told them that that they were all too old fashioned and reactionary for the Peoples Democratic Republic and that they had better reform or leave. The spirits all decided to leave and caused such commotion and turmoil that night that the official relented and told them they could stay, where they now lived happily ever after.

Then up to the border and after due process we are signed out but have to return 30km to the customs point to get the carnet stamped. By the time we get there its lunch time, so its about 3pm before we get back the border and cross into China where we make contact with Edward, our guide for the next week. The paperwork is mindnumbing, both for the Chinese officials and Edward who look at all the various letters, stamps, photos and forms as if they are written in Chinese (or perhaps Khmer in their case). We stand around and move from office to office. Finally after our temperatures are taken and the car wheels washed we are waived thru and we are in China.
Edward suggests that if we are too exhausted by all the bureaucracy, we could stay the night in Mohan but we decide to push on to Mengla. If we thought the Laos roads were horrible, we were in for a nasty shock. China specialises in rutted unmade road, interspersed with the odd bit of potholed macadam. The driving matches these conditions – completely lawless! Why there are still 2 billion of them we can’t figure out, as they should have all been killed in car accidents by now. Despite these hazards we admire the countryside, which continues to be hilly and very green but more intensely farmed. Finally get to Mengla, which turned out to be quite a large city, although hardly rating a name on the map, and check into the post training hotel. On venturing out to a local restaurant we discover we are in the midst of the redlight district which may explain the abundant supplies of “Hercules for Men” tablets and condoms in the room.
Weather 27, Sunny
Distance today 169km
Distance from start 9114km