Phetchabun To The Cha Li Border Crossing Into Laos

[nam-thip]

Phetchabun to the Cha Li border and Friendship Bridge by car.

Take the 21 from Phetchabun to Lomsak, pass through LomSak and head for the 203 road which takes you to Phue Rua which is in a nice setting in the mountains and a great place to stop and have some food. From Phu Rua drive for around 12 kilometres and look for the left turn that takes you to Thai Li which I think was in Thai but there is a sign just as you turn onto the road that says Friendship Bridge. The road to Cha Li is a bad one with deep pot holes and road slip which makes it slow going.

Just keep following the signs to the friendship bridge.

My misses lost the kilometre ‘point to point’ paper she was keeping for me but from memory it was around 230 kilometres and took me 3½ hours with one food stop.

If you’re with the misses and she has no passport then go to the large building located on the right and pay 35 baht for her to enter Laos on her ID card which gives her a three nights and two days stay. Stamp out of Thailand and jump a taxi bike over the bridge which will set you back 20 baht.

On the other side go to the visa window on the left and fill out a visa application form which will cost you 1400 baht which i'm led to believe should cost you 1100 baht. Then cross over and stamp into Laos where your lady will have to stump up another 40 baht for reasons unknown. The taxi boys will offer to take you to the duty free but forget it as it’s nothing more than a tin shack selling crap which will also leave you wide open to bringing a copy item into Thailand and the border police will hit on you big time if you are unfortunate to buy an item that turns out to be a Thai copy. At my ladies suggestion i decided not to bother buying anything so headed back to the border which is only a few minutes away and stamp out of Laos and back into Thailand.

The border village of Cha Li has nothing for farangs so i headed back to Phu Rua where when driving through noticed some nice looking resorts. What a disaster that turned out to be with every resort we tried was fully booked apart from the shit-pit rooms no one wanted and nor did we so i decided to head back to Phetchabun to one of the restaurant/bars around the canal for something to eat and to watch the Spurs V Liverpool game.

A long day but an enjoyable one.

I encountered a problem with the stupid immigration guy at the stamping out of Thailand office as he told me "15 days, you only get 15 days” I explained I had a 1-year visa and was entitled to 90 days on re-entry but he repeated “15 days, you only get 15 days” that’s where the misses came in, he told her the immigration guy at the ‘stamping in’ office could speak some English. A nice helpful guy he was to “I give you 90 days when you come back, just come see me, no problem”

Even though I have enough Thai to get me by without the misses I would have been well fcked as the immigration guy was adamant I was only getting 15 days on my return.

I did have time to play with and if necessary I would have headed up to Nong Khai.

Thankfully that wasn’t necessary.

Warning: Don’t take any photos at the border crossing as I was warned by a Lao military guy “No photo, no photo” and to put my camera away or he would confiscate it which I did as he had a gun and I didn’t.

That's the first border visa run i've done in 8 or 9 years as i've always had a retirement visa but it lapsed while i was in the UK so got myself a 1-year multi entry O at Hull as i'm returning to the UK again in February due to my father’s terminal illness.

I’d like to give a mention to CharlieH for his help in giving me this route.

Edited December 13, 2010 by nam-thip