Leaving Laos

Udomxia isn’t exactly the prettiest Laos town to be leaving from but it is up near the Chinese border and therefore makes for an easy exit point. We spent half a day just aimlessly wandering the streets before another torrential down pour saved us and forced us in to an internet cafe. We had heard that there was a bus to the town of Mengla in China, so first thing the following morning we headed down to the bus station at 7am, jumping puddles as we went, and promptly bought tickets. Just as we were about to board the bus, the supposed one and only to China, we spotted another bus in the station with the name Jinghong on it, Jinghong is another 3 hours deeper into China and an all round better stopping place! After a confusing 10 minutes of pointing and waving of money we finally managed to exchange tickets and swap buses. Along with a very nice couple from Switzerland and a few amused Chineses we sat back and enjoyed the bumpy but scenic ride to the border. This is the main highway to the border and it was in parts an unmade road, the Laos border control was no more than a little brick hut in the middle of nowhere. Having gone through all the neccessary formalities to leave Laos it was back in the bus through no-mans-land to the Chinese border control… hang on the road is now tarmac, there is huge buildings, there’s a fancy airport terminal looking thing that says ‘Welcome to China’… all in the space of 500 meters!
It had been over 7 months since we were here on the start of our journey, seems almost a lifetime ago already, so much has happened! But here we are again, the building work is still going on everywhere, the people still spit and dredge phlegm from the depths of their bodies like you wouldn’t believe, but its good to be back – the final leg of our circle of Asia.