The boarder crossing to Laos....Popcorn Time

The boarder crossing to Laos, as written by the right honorable Dame Ellen Delis....or thereabouts. 

We’ve done heaps of boarder crossings in Central and South America. But crossing the boarder from Yunnan Province Mohan to Laos Botan is another level, prep, paperwork, bullshit and expense.

Yes, we can take Xiaolyv to Laos but there are a few hoops and loops we have to cross off first.

First thing first, we need an agent for Xiaolyv. I checked online, there are a few agents I can contact. I sent one message to an agent, never heard a thing. A step back, 3 weeks ago when we were in Bingzhongluo, we came cross an ADV friendly hotel. Unfortunately, we had settled in another hotel before I spotted this one. Never mind, we still went and met the owner. It turned out he is minding the hotel for his son. His son is the ADV rider and is doing business in Tibet. We had tea with the nice man – he is the same age as Andi....so just a young punk. We bought some maps and stickers from him and had our dinner there. He also connected us with his son on Wechat. His son then passed another ADVer contact in Kunming. While I don’t have any contact for export Xiaolyv, I thought about the ADVER in Kunming. A quick message to him and I got a contact in Mohan- her name is FangFang.

I contacted FangFang 2 weeks before we need to exit China. She was not quite sure how to go about a Foreigners owning a Chinese bike. All her clients were Chinese citizens with Chinese bikes. Never mind, let see. So she started asking us questions, what do we have etc. We have most of the document except we don’t have a temporary Chinese residency. We said we had one but now we are travelling around China and we don’t have an address. After consulting her boss, she said that’s ok, now we need to contact her 5 days before our departing day.

It turns out we need to pre-book the date we want to exit and have to do on that day. No problem for us! We have to leave China otherwise our visa will run out and we will be overstayed.

On the day of  5 days before our departure, I sent her all the documents she needs....we thought, Driver’s license, 4 pages all needed be to photographed. Xiaolyv’s rego and again all 4 pages too. We have an app of Chinese rego and license and it allowed us to download a digital vision, guess what, the Chinese customs doesn’t accept that...who woulda thought an officail document was not official. Ok, do as what we were told. Then 4 photos of Xiaolyv, 45 degrees, right and left front and back. Then photos of engine number, frame number and so on. Did that too. We also have a green booklet for Xiaolyv, it also needs to be photographed. Driver’s passport of course. Well, all done.

Then FangFang said we need to pay $20,000 Yuan (about $5000.00 NZD) instead of $10,000 Yuan deposit as we were told earlier because we are foreigners..white faces LOL. They want to make sure we won’t take the bike to some other countries and sell it. You kidding me! If we paid 75% of Xiaolyv’s value, there is no way we were going to lose that amount of money not to bring it back in China. We haven’t finished our travel either....and it is much easier than walking LOL.

Anyway, that’s fine as long as they refund us the deposit when we come back, no issues.

Then, FangFang said we also need to write a letter to promise we will bring Xiaolyv back to China in 28 days. At this point, Andi is getting annoyed. He thought it’s the agent being unreasonable. I was fed up too but I have to tell him to calm down. Because we – the Twomotokiwis never do things normal. What we are trying to do is new to everyone apparently. Fang Fang has to figure out what to do as she goes. 

She has no control of all of these whatsoever. I asked her if she can give us a template of the letter. The next morning, she sent me one. Good start. We were still in a hotel, so I went to see the reception they kindly printed out for me so I only need to fill in the gaps. Then I wrote Andi’s name wrong. In China you have to write surname first! Receptions again, another print out.

The second one was accepted. Well done me. We geared up and rode to our next destination for the day, bearing in mind we are still NOWHERE near the border so this is Chinese homework on the fly.

Being aware there might be more need to do, I kept my eyes on my WeChat. Sure enough, Fang Fang sent a messages soon after we left hotel. They need Andi’s thumb print on that letter!

Dear Me! Where on earth can I find an inkpad for Andi to put his thumb print in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, we were stopped at a checkpoint for questioning again. We were sent to the office. I spotted an inkpad on the window sill! It really is a miracle! I quickly got the print out from our pannier and made Andi put his thumb print on the paper and photo’d and sent through. Wrong, you need the thumb print on the name. OK, round two, thumb prints on the names. Photo’d, sent. This time. All good. Thank God for the check point. I’ve never been so grateful for checkpoint before. All documents sent and accepted.

Nothing happened in between. Our exiting day finally arrived. We meet Fang Fang at her shop, she took us to the travel agent. We have to sign another contract with the agent (we paid the money but haven't signed anything yet). After we paid $115 Yuan for Laos motor insurance and another $40 Yuan for the agent agreement. Now time to pay the $20,000 Yuan deposit. I pull out my China ICBC bank App from my phone. Name account amount all done, pay – No, I have to go to a branch to do the transaction in person! In Beijing...only 3500 km away...no prob, I think it's because I opened the bank account as a foreigner – everything is more complicated if you are a foreigner. I can’t pay. We are waiting to cross the boarder! It’s hot and we are in our motor gear! Jacket off. I rang my friend Weiping. She was on her way to see her granddaughter on the bus. Anyway, she took the challenge. I sent her the name and the account. Waiting and waiting, a reply, payment failed. Name and account don’t agree. I checked the name, Weiping had accidently enter one word wrong. Change the name. Another 10min later, bing!  The money come through.

We arrived at the border with 5575 km on the clock.

Finally, we were sent to the boarder. Andi and Xiaolyv was escorted by a young lady from customs. I, as a passenger, went to another entry.

Our $20K we had to pay

My exit from China is quick and easy. Andi and Xiaolyv took 20 mins longer but no issue, just formalities bein a white face.

We were then reunited went to Laos boarder together. Pay your $100 USD, we got visa on arrival and then $50,000 LAK =$15 Yuan =$4 NZ dollar for Andi’s temporary driver’s license and then we came out of the office, went to another room that has all the machines. Here we entered Xiaolyv’s details then paid $90,000 LAK =$27 Yuan = $7 NZD for her temporary import permit, we are all done.

The total cost of going to Laos from China taking our bike cost about $1500 Yuan, mostly is the agent fee of $1300 Yuan (short of $400 NZD) which is quiet expensive compared to Central and South America. We only get 14 days from Laos for Xiaolyv although we get 28 days from China. We then have to renew her permit but only for 7 days. We were told this is the only boarder we can get 14 days renew. Go figure!

Anyway, it’s long story. We are in Laos.

Andi's perspective, the China side was torture...as usual, the Laos side was easy just step by step. Language barriers where there but easy enough in the end. The only thing is where XiaoLyu was parked, only 15 meters at most from the barrier arm Ellen was not allowed to sit on the back of the bike till we got the the other side of the barrier arm, about some 15 meters and 1 mm...then it was ok ...LOL.

For every border crossing the is a shiny side, in this case it was a ...something on wheels, dude had one tooth and skinny as a rake, supsected druggie LOL..enjoy