Fortunately, we had crossed the border into Malaysia strengthened, as it was Ramadan here… We had marked the Muslim month of fasting in bold letters in our calendar, but assumed that there would be little sign of it in the multi-ethnic state of Malaysia. We were wrong!
We would have loved to have crossed the Gulf of Thailand by ferry and thus bypassed the Thai capital Bangkok. However, our research only turned up suspended boat connections.
The border post on the Laotian side was a mess of many counters, booths and more or less intact buildings.
The journey through the north of Thailand began in much the same way as it had ended in Laos: steep hills, noodle soup for every meal, plus sweet soy milk.
We left Vietnam shortly after 7 a.m. and cycled through no mans land to the Laos border post. It was so inconspicuously placed in a bend that it would have been easy to miss it. But of course, we needed the entry stamp, which allowed us a visa-free stay of 15 days.
