Travel by car through North-Laos. Tips and photos.

[Yisheng]

Inspired by the adventures of TV member Chrissables with his motorbike in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos I decided to enter North-Laos with my car at Huai Kon , in the Nan-province. I will describe the necessary procedures and add some pictures, all taken with a fixed 35 mm lens.

You need a purple car-passport, issued by the Department of Land Transportation, (where you pay the tax for the car). The car-passport costs a few Baht and takes a few days to be issued. The original blue car book is necessary at the border, so don’t forget it. You will need a copy of the front page and the page showing the tax.

I drove with my female companion. Leaving Pattaya 26/2/17 we stayed the first night at Phrae, a very pleasant small town, clean like a Swiss town! The hotel gave us free bicycles to explore the peaceful place. What a difference to Pattaya!  Several nice temples and chedis in the district. The Ghost town (Muang Pee) is disappointing and not worth the excursion.

[Yisheng]

Next day 120 km to Nan. Again a clean town, entirely the opposite of Pattaya. No crazy drivers. Friday to Sunday evening there is a nice night market with performances and beautiful temples around the market. Definitely worth a visit in the evening.

[Yisheng]

Next day 120 km to Nan. Again a clean town, entirely the opposite of Pattaya. No crazy drivers. Friday to Sunday evening there is a nice night market with performances and beautiful temples around the market. Definitely worth a visit in the evening.

[Yisheng]

Day 3 we drove north to the village Pua where they grow strawberries. You should fill your tank with gasoline because in North-Laos it is about 15% more expensive. From there we drove eastwards on road 1256, 1 hour, then turning north on road 1081, 2 hours to the border. This is a fantastic road, super quality, through the mountains like formerly in the Alps. Remember: 3 hours!

[Yisheng]

Crossing the border took us about 1 ½ hours even though we were the only tourist car that afternoon. The Thai side wanted copies of the blue-car book, then we had to buy insurance for Laos (360 Baht for 15 days) and finally we passed the Thai Immigration. Driving to the Laos side we were suddenly on the wrong side of the road. No signs indicating the change. Formalities again: Visa first, 30 USD or 1200 Baht, bring a photo, import the car, they want to know at which border crossing we will leave Laos, Laos Immigration, 40 Baht fee for passing after 16:00 o’clock. From now on 40 Baht for every possible reason, like parking, passing to a waterfall etc. Finally driving on to Pak Beng. Again a quite good road through the mountains.

[Yisheng]

We spent the night in Pak Beng. This village is the stop over point of the 2 days cruise on the Mekong river with a slow boat from Chiang Kong to Luang Prabang. So there are plenty of guesthouses and restaurants. You can use Thai Baht or USD or change to Laos Kip. But you should not use an ATM for getting cash because the exchange rate for USD is 8% worse than for cash. Next morning sunrise at the Mekong. Morning temperature was 18 degrees C.

[Yisheng]

Next day the road to Oudom Xai (Muangsai) was really bad. Lots of pot holes. So the average speed is around 20 km /hour. The picturesque landscape was consoling.

[Yisheng]

From Oudom Xai to Luang Namtha the road was better but still quite slow.

[Yisheng]

In Namtha we visited a waterfall and a chedi. Nothing spectacular but we were alone at the waterfall while in Luang Prabang we were surrounded by hundreds of Chinese tourists.

[Yisheng]

The next day we drove on to Muang Xing in the Golden Triangle. The road was extremely bad for 3 hours. Beautiful landscape but a torture for the car. I would not recommend that part of the trip.

[Yisheng]

The early morning market is famous for the many tribes going there to sell their products. But it was slightly disappointing. Similar to other markets in S-E-Asia. The market in Luang Prabang is more interesting and no need to get up at 6 o’clock.

[Yisheng]

[Yisheng]

The next day we took the terrible road back to Luang Namtha and the better road N13 to Nong Kiaw, a touristic village at the Ou river. From here boats leave for Luang Prabang. The landscape is more Krabi-like. One whole day on the road. On March 3^rd, the morning temperature was 14 degrees climbing to 30 degrees in the afternoon.

[Yisheng]

We visited the Pha Tok Cave, where the Laotians were hiding during the secret war in which 2 million tons of bombs were dropped from the CIA-planes, mainly in this area. Again we were alone, not surrounded by hundreds of Chinese tourists.

[Yisheng]

After about three hours on our 7^th day we arrived at Luang Prabang, the jewel of Indochina. Beautiful but full of tourists. A paradise for photographers. We stayed 4 days but could easily have stayed longer. So much to see or just relax. This is the dream we had 40 years ago about Thailand.

[Yisheng]

The famous night marketand more temples. Characteristic of the architecture are the deep reaching roofs.

[Yisheng]

25 km upstream at the Mekong is the Pak Ou cave. The best way to go there is by boat, a pleasant cruise. We made the mistake of going by car on a horrible road. The cave itself is nothing special.

[KittenKong]

I wanted to "like" these posts but I cant because the "like this" function is broken today. So I'll just say thanks like this for your interesting report.

 

What sort of places did you overnight in? Where/what did you eat? What did it cost? Did you use GPS or a map?

[Yisheng]

There are 2 beautiful waterfalls near Luang Prabang. One was peaceful but almost dry in March, the other one (Kuang Si) beautiful but overcrowded with young Western and Chinese tourists.

[Yisheng]

1 minute ago, KittenKong said:

I wanted to "like" these posts but I cant because the "like this" function is broken today. So I'll just say thanks like this for your interesting report.

 

What sort of places did you overnight in? Where/what did you eat? What did it cost? Did you use GPS or a map?

We stayed in guesthouses, slightly more expensive than in Thailand, like 1000-1500 THB. The guesthouses had generally good food, not different from Thailand. We used GPS and a good map.

 

[Yisheng]

We paid our respects at the tomb of Henri Mouhot who died there of malaria 150 years ago.

[Yisheng]

From L.P. we drove 4 hours on a new road to Vang Vieng. We remembered the beautiful landscape from our last visit there 5 years ago. But this time the mountains were hidden in fog and the town was very ugly. So we drove on for 3 hours to Vientiane and the next day to Nong Khai. In this temple of Vientiane they did not allow to make photos so I had to take one.

[Yisheng]

As a sidenote I found a dermatologist in Nong Khai who treated 3 spots of my aging skin using laser for 700 THB. In Pattaya this would have cost me 3,000 THB.

On day 13 we drove back to Pattaya, 3245 km in all.

[jollyhangmon]

27 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

I wanted to "like" these posts but I cant because the "like this" function is broken today. So I'll just say thanks like this for your interesting report.

 

What sort of places did you overnight in? Where/what did you eat? What did it cost? Did you use GPS or a map?

... second that, well done sir, thanks!

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Nice pics, thanks for sharing

[sas_cars]

Very nice trip report and pics. Thanks a lot for sharing. I'm also contemplating such trip.

[VirgoSG]

Thanks for sharing your itinerary, photos, and experiences.  All for helpful to store away for future use.  Glad you had a safe and enjoyable trip.

[Randell]

I join all the other which have enjoyed and commented on your excellent photos and commentary thank you very much. 

Randell

[chrissables]

On 3/19/2017 at 7:02 PM, Yisheng said:

Crossing the border took us about 1 ½ hours even though we were the only tourist car that afternoon. The Thai side wanted copies of the blue-car book, then we had to buy insurance for Laos (360 Baht for 15 days) and finally we passed the Thai Immigration. Driving to the Laos side we were suddenly on the wrong side of the road. No signs indicating the change. Formalities again: Visa first, 30 USD or 1200 Baht, bring a photo, import the car, they want to know at which border crossing we will leave Laos, Laos Immigration, 40 Baht fee for passing after 16:00 o’clock. From now on 40 Baht for every possible reason, like parking, passing to a waterfall etc. Finally driving on to Pak Beng. Again a quite good road through the mountains.

 

Is this taken from the new bridge?

 

Thanks for the reference! :)

[chrissables]

On 3/19/2017 at 7:23 PM, Yisheng said:

The next day we took the terrible road back to Luang Namtha and the better road N13 to Nong Kiaw, a touristic village at the Ou river. From here boats leave for Luang Prabang. The landscape is more Krabi-like. One whole day on the road. On March 3^rd, the morning temperature was 14 degrees climbing to 30 degrees in the afternoon.

 

 

On 3/19/2017 at 7:23 PM, Yisheng said:

The next day we took the terrible road back to Luang Namtha and the better road N13 to Nong Kiaw, a touristic village at the Ou river. From here boats leave for Luang Prabang. The landscape is more Krabi-like. One whole day on the road. On March 3^rd, the morning temperature was 14 degrees climbing to 30 degrees in the afternoon.

 

Great photo's!

 

Were you only allowed 2 weeks for the car visa? It's frustrating wanting to go there for a month long ride and being given two weeks. There must be a way around that.