Border Crossing

Add four passengers plus luggage--that was our ride

Please proceed to the nearest immigration hut…

From Kratie, Cambodia, I boarded a “minivan” to take me north into Laos. All was well for a while, and then I noticed that the driver started driving really slowly once we passed Stung Treng. Like he was waiting or expecting something.

Having been robbed at gunpoint on such a deserted road once, I regarded this with deep suspicion. Nobody purposefully drives slowly like that without a reason, and I couldn’t think of any good ones.

Then, on a lone stretch of road, he stopped. We must wait, he said. What in the world??

We waited, flies buzzing, no shade anywhere. In the distance, another van appeared coming from the opposite direction. It flashed its lights twice, slowed down, then turned and stopped behind our van. This is it, I thought.

But nothing nefarious. It was a mid-road vehicle swap. Everyone in van A had to move to van B, and vice versa. Normally this was done in Stung Treng, but since the other van we behind schedule our driver drove north to meet it, slowly so as to conserve gas and also since he didn’t know the way. Okay then. So I got into the new van, and we started north again.

Three minutes later, we pulled over again. What now?

The van we had just been on came behind us again, and let one person out. Apparently, he was the Lao driver that would take us from the border north into Laos, and we had somehow forgotten him when we did the vehicle swap.

Fifteen minutes later, we reached the border. And by border I mean a metal pole gate slung across the road with a little wooden hut next to it. Inside, two uniformed Cambodian border guards to carefully inspect and stamp your passport (with, of course, an extra $1 donation).

Once past this hut, we had to switch to our third minivan, the Lao one. Then drive 100 meters to the next hut with a gate, this time with Lao border guards. You know a hut is official when it includes both the flag of Laos and the yellow hammer-and-sickle red communist flag. Still needed to fork over another $1, though.

Our third minivan took us north into Laos for a few miles. We even took a detour on this little dirt road and stopped at the driver’s house, so he could pick up a spare battery for his cell phone. His 2-year old son (unmistakable since he was only wearing a short red t-shirt), threw a tantrum at the door when he left.

Over a bumpy, dusty dirt road we reached the Mekong river again, and offloaded.

I’m not sure what I had expected in terms of “boat” to reach the river island of Don Det, but a tiny sliver of a canoe only barely hip-wide certainly wasn’t it. I can swim, but my camera can’t, and having the water only a couple inches from the side of a narrow little four-person canoe that rocks at every little ripple and flutter of a fish’s gills is by no means confidence-inspiring. I endured the ride and prayed that no one would sneeze, which I was certain would irrevocably tip the canoe and send us all flying into the Mekong, camera and electronics first.

No one sneezed, and I was only too happy to clamber onto the beach. Three minibuses, two huts, and one little canoe later, I had finally arrived in Don Det.