Welcome back all you Steemians! In the last post we made it to Luang Prabang, Laos after the bumpiest and dustiest ride of our lives and spent some time there resting and exploring this amazing little town. In this post will be continuing our hitchhiking journey from Thailand to Europe by heading to the border of China.
We got up very early that morning in order to get an early start as we were planning on making it to the biggest town before the border of China. We would need to travel about 190 km through windy mountains roads in order to make it to Muang Xai.
We started walking out of town and across the Mekong river to find a good spot to start hitchhiking. It turned out that we actually had to walk quite a long way before we got to a good spot which delayed us a little.
After some time we finally got picked up by a lovely family who even turned around to come back and pick us up and they took us about 30 minutes down the road before they dropped us off and turned off on a smaller road.
The actual spot where they had turned off was not a good spot to hitchhike, it was right on a corner with no space for cars to stop, so we decided to walk further along the road in search of a better location. We had been walking for about 10 minutes when a pick up truck drove past us, stopped about 50 metres away and then proceeded to reverse backwards. At this point we were feeling pretty lucky as we were thinking about the previous hitchhiking day we had experienced (https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@timezonejunkies/our-dustiest-and-bumpiest-hitchhiking-ride-in-laos).
It was at this moment things became a little strange and the stage was set for the rest of our day. The reversing pick up started snaking in its movement and kept driving in and out of the ditch! This is when we started waving our arms like crazy trying to get the driver to stop so we could walk over to him, however he continued reversing and was getting closer to a deep part in the ditch! At this point we were running towards the car to try to stop it going any further but the driver paid no attention to us and continued reversing and ended going right into that ditch with the nose of the pick up truck facing upwards!
We just stood there, shocked by what had just happened, but reality hit us in the face and we came to our senses and tried to wave down the cars passing by. Luckily for us a police car was driving past and we managed to stop it and get the driver some help. We stood there for a few minutes wondering what we should do but it became quite apparent that there was nothing we could have done. The driver was a little shaken but without injury and he went with someone on the back of a scooter to get some help we imagined. We continued walking along the road to find a spot to hitchhike and we waited, and waited, and waited for someone to pick us up. Not only was there very little traffic but noone wanted to stop.
We started talking about the guy who had just driven into the ditch and were saying that if he came past we would not go with him! Guess what happened next? The same pick up truck appeared in the horizon and eventually came to a stop right next to us and signalled us to get in! We considered our options and the fact that there was basically no traffic and that we still had a long way to go and then decided to go with him anyway!
The ride started out pretty well. He was driving nicely, not too fast, nice and smooth through the corners and everything felt alright. The scenery outside was really impressive and we sat back to enjoy the ride.
Things started to get a bit hairy when we reached the mountains. Before this we had been following the river going upstream and everything had been fine. However the mountains were a different story! He started going in to the corners way too fast, overtaking on corners and just generally driving really badly! This turned out to be one of the scariest rides of our lives! Alex was sitting in the front seat and could see all the corners coming up and his heart was beating the whole way to Muang Xai! We considered asking him to stop and let us out but the chances of us getting picked up were so small we decided to continue with him.
When we finally arrived in Muang Xai Alex actually asked him to stop two kilometres early as he could not muster the strength to stay in the car any longer, he just wanted out! Having adrenaline pumping through his veins for the past three hours had taken its tole on him! Malin wasn't feeling as bad as she was in the back seat and had taken a car sickness pill which had knocked her out!
We felt bad as on the one hand we were really grateful for all the help he had given us, he even bought us some soft drinks, but at the same time we felt very relieved to be out of the vehicle and back on our own feet and in control of our fate! Either way, he was a very friendly chap and even after his little accident earlier that day he had still stopped to pick us up!
We walked into town to find a guest house for the next few nights before we were to head to the Chinese border.
We weren't really sure what to expect in this small town but it turned out that it had a really pretty temple complex on top of the hill overlooking the town so we went up to watch the sunset. While we there filming and taking pictures a young local guy came over to us. It turned out that he often came up to the temple around sunset to talk to foreigners and to practise his English.
After a few days in Muang Xai it was time to try to hitchhike to the border of China! It was still another 100 km to the border through windy mountain roads. We had written down the names of the towns we were planning on visiting in China as we knew we would have very little internet access and what access we would have would be limited by 'The Great Firewall of China'.
The going was a little tough that day as well. We had to walk quite a long way out of town to find a spot to start hitchhiking from. Eventually we got picked up by a Chinese lady who took us for about 30 minutes and then dropped us off by a petrol station were we ended up waiting for a fair amount of time.
As mentioned above, the road was very windy and Malin, who suffers from car sickness, was finding it hard to not feel sick. Using google translate we asked our new drivers (also from China) to stop so she could use a toilet before we continued to the border where they were also heading.
The border town is called Boten and it is a curious place. For a long time lots of Chinese people came here to use the casinos but after people couldn't pay there debts and for various reasons the town faced its demise. If you are interested you can read about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/world/asia/china-laos-boten-gambling.html.
We found a place to exchange the last of our Laos currency into Chinese RMB and headed for the border with uncertainty about what was going to happen once we arrived in China! This was when things really started to feel real and that the challenge we had given ourselves was starting to feel rather overwhelming!
If you would like to see our video from this entry please find it below.
Once again thank you everyone for reading and if you have any questions please feel free to ask!
We also have a YouTube channel if anyone is interested in follow our journey: https://youtube.com/timezonejunkies