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Luang Prabang, Pakse and 4000 Islands in Laos

I liked Laos very much! It’s a rather small country, so I didn’t need to travel long distances and could stay longer in some cities.
The Kuang Si waterfalls in Luang Prabang were impressive in this rainy season! In Vang Vieng it’s impossible to skip the tubing (see the movie here) and on the 4000 Islands it’s just quiet and relaxed (although there are currently not so much islands due to the high water level in the Mekong).
In Pakse there’s a big golden Buddha and some more waterfalls…


mountain passes in Tibet

no, I didn’t go back to China, I’m still in Laos!
these are some photos of the mountain passes in Tibet we crossed. some bikers may find these interesting 🙂

my personal record: 5231m
I need to count them all on the GPS track, because we didn’t take pictures on all of them. but I think we did three 5000m passes and about twelve 4000m.


exiting China

basically, China has been a pain in the ass and I’m glad to be out of this country! maybe I’ll write some blog entries about China later, but for know I just want to close this part of the trip with this one.

The Yunnan province in the south is not so restricted as the other so we could finally enjoy some nice cities there. Shangri-La, Lijiang and Dali had pretty nice and old town centers to explore.

We’ve also got the car out of the truck in the last town just short of the border and it got out of China without any issues! (the car with the failed vehicle inspection).


China war mühsam und ich bin froh, aus dem Land raus zu sein! vielleicht schreibe ich später noch ein paar Artikel über China, aber momentan möchte ich dieses Kapitel mit diesem hier abschliessen.

Die Yunnan Provinz im Süden ist weniger eingeschränkt als andere, daher konnten wir ein paar Städte endlich ein wenig geniessen. Shangri-La, Lijiang und Dali haben schöne, alte Stadtzentren zum Erkunden.

Den Wagen haben wir auch wieder aus dem Truck holen und über die Grenze nach Laos bringen können!

I’m in Laos!

sorry for the lack of updates!
it was hard to get some decent Internet access in China (all Google services are blocked and VPN didn’t work so well either). And we had long driving days, so I wasn’t too excited in the evenings to update…

I’ve got a ton of pictures and videos, but I need to create new movies first! I hope to get back into the old release cycle soon…

I’m really glad to have reached Laos and got out of China! No more dangerous roads and traffic here and much nicer people!

so here some impressions of Laos!
stay tuned for more 🙂


 

Chinese security

There’s security everywhere here in China. At least here in the Xinjiang Chinese petrol station province, we’ll have to see if the other provinces are the same.

Every shop has a security guard and most do have metal detectors and sometimes even scanners like on the airports. It seems to be by law, because even the smallest mini shops do have at least a helmet, shield and baton ready nearby. But they don’t seem to be trained how to use all this: the detectors beep all the time but nobody gets really checked afterwards.

The most annoying thing are the petrol stations! They are protected by a fence with barbed wire and there’s a barrier with security guards at the entrance. The Chinese can open the gate with their ID card (seems to be an RFID chip). But our temporary IDs don’t have the chip and look different. So we always have to convince the guards that we are indeed allowed to get petrol. Sometimes the bikes are not allowed on the station’s area at all! We then have to fill the petrol into big tea pots of about 6 liters and carry them to the bikes!!


In China gbt’s überall Sicherheitsbeamte. Jedenfalls hier in der Xinjiang Provinz. Mal schauen, wie’s woanders dann sein wird.

Jeder Supermarkt, Restaurant und Hotel haben Sicherheitsleute und meistens auch Metalldetektoren. Manchmal sogar Scanner wie am Flughafen! Aber sie wissen nicht, wie man die Dinger bedient! Es piepst andauernd, aber niemanden interessiert’s es wird nicht kontrolliert. Die Taschen muss man wie am Flughafen auf’s Band legen, aber niemand schaut auf den Monitor… und in jedem noch so kleinen Laden haben sie einen Helm, Schild und Schlagstock! Scheint per Gesetz vorgeschrieben zu sein.

vehicle inspection failed

One car of our group did not pass the chinese vehicle inspection, so this car is not allowed to drive through China! instead of going back to Kazakhstan, we found another solution:

loading the car into the truck!
but the truck has been modified to be a mobile home and didn’t have enough space anymore.
so we ripped almost everything out of the truck: fridge, sink, heater, couch, kitchen…
so the car is inside the truck now and will get with us to the border to Laos!