Like how the 25km from Nong Khai to Vientiane took three hours. Between outbound immigration formalities, waiting for and taking the bus across the Friendship Bridge, inbound immigration formalities, and sweltering transport from the middle-of-nowhere to central Vientiane. Why are the two border cities so far away from each other anyway? (Actually I suppose they were not meant to be neighbouring cities, but modern transportation has brought them close enough to be thought of as such.) The journey back on the Thai-Lao International Bus was smoother, but it still took a while to clear all the immigration formalities. Partly because some of the immigration officers type English reaaally slooowly. You could see the queue at the booth getting longer as they slowly figured out where each letter was on the keyboard. I suppose touch-typing training isn't completely useless, really.
On the bright side, Laos was nice enough to waive visa requirements for ASEAN citizens. So do most other ASEAN members apparently, less super-paranoid, slightly eccentric Myanmar. You see, ASEAN isn't completely useless. We just work at a pace that all of members are comfortable with. We work at ... a Lao pace (actually, that would explain a lot.)
Which means anything remotely resembling Schengen would be aeons away from conception here. I suppose land borders are here to stay for a while in this part of the world. At least they add variety to the journey. Where else do you get to see self-intersecting roads and big bilingual signs saying "Stop! You're going the wrong way"?
Can you believe that it's a whole different country on the other side? I can't. Or actually, maybe they aren't that different.
No comments:
Post a Comment