Sun 04/01/09 23:38

It was just a short bus ride to Luk Sao, the border town that we were staying at before we came to Vietnam. The weather was great in Vietiane, and it was freezing in Luk Sao. It was so cold that it wasn’t any fun at all. My best guess was the temp was about 45 degrees and windy, way too cold to hang out and just drink beer. So everyone went to bed about 730, but this town was not meant to be a tourist location, it was just the point where we were going to get an early start for the border, so it was unfortunate that it was so cold, but not a tragedy. What was a tragedy was when we got up there wasn’t any electricity. No lights, no heat, and what really sucked, no hot water. That meant that for two days I haven’t had a shower… doesn’t really bother me though, though I haven’t asked anyone in the group if I’m bothering them.

The border crossing was almost surreal in some ways. The weather got worse overnight and when we got moving, it was colder, fogging and rainy. So as we’re driving along we turn a corner and there is the border crossing hidden in the dense fog. People were appearing and disappearing into the same fog. All these “officials” walking around in uniforms straight out of the sixties, trying to look impressive, but through no fault of their own, they didn’t. They just looked kind of obsolete relics of a military state that tries to impress people based on what may have been impressive in the fifties and sixties. We crossed the border with no problems and arrived in Vihn about 12 noon.