Hello everybody. The Thundra, Little Pepe, Steve and I are currently in Luang Nam Tha, Laos about 50 kilometers from the China border crossing at Botan. We are going to cross over into China on Monday and are still waiting to see if we will have to leave the Toyotas at the border for a few days. We have been extremely busy trying to figure this whole China thing out and the last few days have been quite hectic. It finally seems that with the exception of a few loose ends though, we will be on the open road in China with our guide "Jason" very soon.
Given that we are not quite sure what our internet access will be like while we are in China, we have also spent the last several days preparing for the Central Asia leg of the journey. We have our paperwork for Russia processing as we speak which should not be much of a problem. After that, it is into Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. For the most part, the required documentation and permissions for the "stans" are pretty straight forward, although we are having a bit of difficulty with Turkmenistan. However, after dealing with getting into China for the last 3 months, we are veterans of road research and diplomacy and have already found our way over a few of the hurdles we encountered with TM. The next several months are shaping up to be quite exciting.
But enough about us. I know everyone wants to see some photos, which the recent blog entries have been lacking, so after we finish cleaning all of the contraband out of the trucks tomorrow before heading north into China, we will work on some photo galleries for your viewing pleasure.
