Driving from thailand to laos with a sedan

[wowjudo]

Hello

I've decided to make a short trip to laos next month. Instead of using public transport i thought i could restore my wife's old 2001 nissan sunny and use it as my fleet to laos.

since it's an older sedan i am abit worried about the road conditions there. Anybody here that drove to laos with a sedan and can tell about the road conditions ? My destination is first savannakhet and from there i want to go to pakse aswell.

also any navigator that would be reliable for those routes ?

cheers

[wilcopops]

You have all the docs and you'll need there purple book "car passport"?

As for the roads, the main roads in the south and round Vientiane are USUALLY OK...I say usually because they are so badly built a season of rain can completely change the surface of the road.

you best bet (and I can't help you here) is to get info of someone who has been there on those particular roads very recently.

but bear in mind that there is a lot of very old bangers on the roads over their, much older than yours and they seem to survive, take a spare wheel (or 2, and make sure you have a jack etc) a tow rope etc and you'll find a roadside repair probably costs surprisingly little.

[wowjudo]

thanks for the advice.

i asked few tour guides and they said that i should only drive at day and avoid "land pirates" at night on open desert roads. apperently there are many incident with them especially with thai cars and visitors on big bikes.

[wilcopops]

thanks for the advice.

i asked few tour guides and they said that i should only drive at day and avoid "land pirates" at night on open desert roads. apperently there are many incident with them especially with thai cars and visitors on big bikes.

There are a few questions posed by this advice..........tour guides? Why would they be a particularly good source of advice?

"open desert roads" - I take it you mean deserted.......it seems a bit implausible that they are going to wait on a deserted road on the off-chance that one of the few vehicles that shows up is going to be a foreigner...who they have the added difficulty of identifying at night.

many incidents? Well if a foreigner was stopped in the middle of nowhere and robbed or killed, i'm sure in the end there would be a bit of a kerfuffle in the press....can't say I've noticed that in particular.

Finally I've heard variations on this story several times before, which makes it take on the appearance of urban myth.

Certainly several years back there were warring factions still very active in some regions of the country.

Certainly the roads can be very poor.....and I wouldn't advise driving through the night....although on a couple of occasions I've had to do this.

Certainly in extreme rural areas you could still find the going almost impossible.........I have used 4WD on every trip.

I have driven extensively throughout Laos i the last 2 years and apart from being some of the most beautiful and exciting roads I've ever driven, I din't feel particularly threatened....I've even had some great encounters helping / being helped by other road users having mechanical problems. The main hindrances I experienced were road works (well road building really) and the odd landslide that had to be cleared.

[wowjudo]

the tour guide version seemed abit extreme sorry. i guess they wanted me to hire them indiretcly by scaring me off for going alone there with my wife.

my destination is paksong https://www.google.co.th/maps/@15.1774061,106.2377716,15z?hl=en

do you have any route advice for me that would suit my sedan (i have no 4WD unfortunately)

i was thinking of this

route https://www.google.co.th/maps/dir/Chiang+Rai+Inn+Hotel,+Mueang+Chiang+Rai+District,+Chiang+Rai/Pakse,+Laos/@17.39047,102.0739724,8z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x30d70666c42c7f3f:0x16a51a4d86757d08!2m2!1d99.831063!2d19.908009!1m5!1m1!1s0x3114f8b6fd85344b:0xb9105f9f5ad94310!2m2!1d105.783333!2d15.116667?hl=en

not sure if it will work since most thai cars do cross over mukdahan