We spent another day here waiting to pick up our visa. It was a noisy night at the tennis court as everyone in the town tends to have at least two dogs and as soon as one barks, the others all start! It builds to a mad crescendo and then slowly fades away until the next disturbance sets them off. However it was a nice central spot in town meaning that you can wander around in the evening. The countryside is much nicer during the day, but when it gets dark at around 5.45 pm, it can be a long evening in the camper!
We got up early so that we could see the monks ‘taking alms’. People from the town are dotted around a fixed route and the monks walk in line and take offerings of food (usually rice). This happens at 6.00am every day. Marjool had not got up early enough to make rice, but did have a packet of cheese crackers ….. they probably don’t get those every day!
After breakfast we headed down to the river as it is nice and breezy there. Graham fished for a while and caught one tiny fish. The sun then popped over the trees and he retreated to the shade.
The locals were not having much more luck, but it was great to watch.
We picked up our visa at the consulate at 2.00pm. It is really organised, and you are called to the counter in order that you applied the day before to pick up the passport. We had been given a double entry 60 day visa, which would take us through to 7th January. That fits with the timing of shipping the car out of Malaysia mid to end of January.
We decided not to go across the border until the next morning as it normally takes a couple of hours with the car. We had been told that locals can cross until 10.00pm, but for temporary import of foreign cars, we would need to be there before 5.00pm. We found a nice spot by the river by what we thought was a bar. It turned out to be a private site, but they were happy for us to stay. It was an interesting place as it had an old Laos Airways plane in the back garden.
It was another warm night, and at 8.00pm it was still 29 deg C.
troopytracks 