Immigration & Customs for the car is strangely not the same affair as it was in Sadao. Whilst you do hand in the form and also sign off in the book, there are two more forms required that the Lao customs will expect to see.
Make sure you have the following Thai documents before you leave the border post:
- 'Information of Conveyance (TM2)' and [from Immigration]
- 'Application for Export temporarily the vehicle, outfit and passengers from Thailand'. (form 450) [Customs]
Leaving Immigration you come to the approach of the bridge. Here you pay 20 baht as a toll. This is the famous Friendship bridge, built by the Australians to forge links between the two peoples of Thailand and Laos.. etc etc .. For all its hoopla it is at first a little underwhelming. It is indeed quite a long bridge, spanning the Mekong but is only one lane each way with no verge so appears narrow. It is however more than enough to cope with current traffic volume.
Any thoughts that the reason the Laos drive on the right and the Thais the left is an idealogical gap should be dismissed straight away.
The difference is a colonnial hangover. Laos was part of French Indochina and till the 50's was a French protectorate. Accordingly not only do they drive on the right but you can get a pretty tasty baguette or even a croissant. Older folks can speak French and the offical government languages are French and Lao.
And Thailand? Heavily influenced by the English they chose to drive on the left. This has only proven to be a problem for them in a couple of places - the crossing into Laos (see below) and the resort islands of Phuket and Koh Samui where relaxed German tourists driving rental jeeps forget they are not at home any more and drfit to the right side of the road..!.Local authorities on Samui have deemed it fit to post "we drive on the left" signs and emergency signs (in German!) at regular intervals around the island.
As you come off the bridge the road curves round to the left to a rather simple and straightforward solution for a landcrossing between left and right hand driving countries.
As part of the bridge project a cross over intersection with a simple set of traffic lights was installed to allow traffic to change sides of the road.
Immigration and Customs
This then brings you to the Lao immigration and customs building. Filling in the immigration arrival departure cards processing was very uneventful. We paid an 'overtime charge' of 1500 kip each (20 baht) as well as bridge tolls for the car. Our Visas were prearranged but you can purchase them here for 30 USD each (Australian passports).
Insurance
We paid a 75 baht for third party insurance from the only insurance company in Lao Associete du Generale Assurances de Lao.
Overtime Fees
Just be aware of the prevalence for overtime fees.
Expect a premium charge on top for any processing done outside core hours or on weekends. Core hours mind you are pretty core. In a worse case anything outside of 10am to 12 and 2 till 5 is considered overtime. Outside these hours your Visa will cost USD 31! And you will pay overtime fees for immigration and customs.
Car permits
Prior to our trip we had arranged through a local travel agent the required car permits.
A permit is required for each province. We obtained two; one for Vientiane and one for Luang Prabang. You cannot get these at the border and it is recommended you use a local government associated travel agent to obtain them prior to your trip. These need to be produced at immigration, and they will need to stamp the Vientiane document. Make sure they do, else its a real hassle when you try to leave. (see intro above).
Customs also will need to see the Thai documentation (see Leaving Thailand side) and they will want to inspect the boot and cabin of the car
We got a recent update from some folks on their way to Laos from Singapore this Christmas time (Dec 2002). A couple of things have changed and a few others bear pointing out - thanks to Hannes for these updates.
Getting the permits
As before a permit is still required and you must indicate where and when you are going and where and when you will be returning.
You cannot get these at the border and it is recommended you use a local government associated travel agent to obtain them prior to your trip.
You are advised NOT to leave this to the last minute as the agents need approx 10 working days to get the approvals. Also only a few agents are able to help.
Of those known to be able to assist are:
Diethlem (email) dtlvie@pan-laos.net.la / dtl.vie@laonet.net (Tel) 856-21-213833 (Fax) 856-21-217151
Vieng Champa Tours (email) viengchampa@laonet.net (Tel) 856-21-216616 (Fax) 856-21-215260
Phoudoi Travel Co (email) poudoitravel@laonet.net (Tel) 856-21-413-888 (Fax) 856-21-413639
Cost
When I went through in 1999 the cost of these documents was a revenue generating 80 USD!. Hannes' current enquiries has the figure now at 200 USD.
I wonder how much next year?
Procedures
All the agencies will be able to act on your instructions by fax. They will ask you the same details which are summarised in the Diethelm letter below. What is not mentioned below is that they can also fax the permits to you and meet you at the border with the originals. No Carnet is required (at least not for Singaporean cars). Based on the correspondance this would also extend to other nationalities as well
The below is a reproduction of the fax sent by Diethelm to Hannes.
How to proceed to get permission?
You should fax us the documents of your car:
Registration card, plate number, color, type of car, model, engine number, chassis number, driver name, driver license and number of person travelling with .
Fixed date of arrival and departure to/from Laos and stating the entry/exit point .
Then with these data we will proceed to get permission from the Ministry of Transport and the province where you will enter to Laos.
After getting permission, we will respectively mail the original to you for your reference and for showing to the tax staff at the check-in point. The control will strictly be done due to recently there are the foreigners coordinating with local people making import vehicle of foreigner to the country and after that doing the sale to the local people.
For your information, Laos driving on right side and for your safety, if your car has the right steering drive it would be nice. Because if driving to North Laos, the routes are partly bad and mostly snaking through mountainous area.
Please note that Laos often has challenges with e-mail connection if you Have not received a reply from our office within 48 hour, please resend your Messages by fax with the numbers as address.
Thank you
Pulling out of the compound you turn right onto the main road that takes you into Vientiane.
Remember you are now driving on the right. Unlike the English channel crossing there is no requirement to tag your lights and as we were crossing after dark we were greatful – the road is poor and badly lit – we needed all the light we could get. From 100 kmh progress in Thailand you are now down to 30-40 kmh at best.
By the time you arrive in Vientiane (20 kms from the border) you understand why 80% of the private vehicles here are 4wd and why the top speed limit is 40. Any fillings you had are now on the car floor.
Fun and games with red tape
This border is not really used to foreign vehicles. All the vehicles crossing were local (ie either Thai or Lao).
On both sides but particularly the Lao there was a sense of bewilderment as we passed through. In retrospect I suspect that neither side really knew what was required to process our car. Passing through the border late at night did not help either as particularly on the Lao side a combination of language and dinner time meant we were left unaccosted. This meant that whilst our own immigration & customs was completed we crossed into Lao with the car processing incomplete. This came back to haunt us later in the trip.
The Thai side is quite obliging but the Lao have set up procedures that are it seems dependant on Thai Immigration and Customs documentation! To make matters worse they have not kept in pace with the Thai’s recent efforts to streamline procedures for foreign registered cars. This left third party vehicles like ours in a procedural twilight zone. We had left Thailand without documentation that the Lao were expecting – this caused problems for us later.
Still haven’t decided who was at fault but we spent a few harrowing hours at the border on the third day as the Laos demanded two Thai documents that I had not seen before nor expected to. It turned out that these documents are usual fare for Thai vehicles leaving the Kingdom. The Lao take these and hold onto them for the period of your stay. A search through my files shows they have not been used for foreign cars for some time if indeed at all – so we did not receive these as we passed through the NongKhai border post nor infact expected them.
Lao customs wanted two forms from the Thai side. The first one is from customs and is called the 'Application for Export temporarily the vehicle, outfit and passengers from Thailand'. As the name would suggest it is meant for Thai cars crossing the border. We tried to point this out but Customs would not be swayed. When we returned to Thailand the Thais also pointed this out but luckily I found a section (possibly old and no longer used) on the document which allowed for foreign registered vehicle details. The Thais seeing no harm and being sympathetic to our predicament acquiesced.
The second document was more straightforward. This is the 'Information of Conveyance' (form TM2) and comes from Thai Immigration. Whilst the Thais had no real problem producing one for me it was unclear whether I was supposed to get one as I left Nongkhai or when I first entered Sadao on the way up from Singapore. Netherless they were very cooperative and helped me fill the form in.
It was interesting to note that having issued the forms the Thais made it clear that they would need them back when I passed back through. Clearly I need to find out more about this process
When we visited Laos (Nov 1999) the requirement of checking in with authorities in each town had been discontinued for some time already (April 99). Travel formalties are now only at international borders. The next such formality then will be when you leave Laos. I am unsure if any of this has changed since the violence of 2001.
Vientiane is a large town of about 250,000 people. Mostly a mixture of chinese shop houses, socialist architecture and french colonial.. all in a light covering of dust.
The evenings reminded us how far north we had travelled. The temperature drops to the high teens and we found ourselves dressing as if for cooler climates. Quite refreshing.
Vientiane is an easy town to get around as it does not suffer the traffic problems of its more developed cousins over the border.
Slightly cooler in climate less crowded and with a preponderance of French colonial and buddhist architecture Vientiane is a walkers dream. The people are friendly and everything is cheap.
Amusingly this is where we discovered that mechanics in Singapore have a habit or removing the car heater and so it was a little chilly in the cabin. All the more reason to walk!
