Subject: Re: border crossings and rules of road
Date: Jan 04, 2005 @ 23:50
Author: aletheiak ("aletheiak" <aletheiak@...>)
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yes i concur with my colleague here about your roads scholarship
brendan
& especially appreciate the fresh field report
while on the road itself

also
as tasteful a dismissal of the multipoint at the heart of the story
as i have ever heard

so keep up the great play & lets hear from you as much as possible now


--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Jesper Nielsen" <jesniel@i...>
wrote:
> Beautiful account, Brendan.
>
> Hope you will share photos as well.
>
> Jesper
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: bwhyte@u...
> To: BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 3:19 AM
> Subject: [BoundaryPoint] border crossings and rules of road
>
>
> I have just returned to Thailand after 10 days in Laos.
> Crossed into Vientiane by Friendship Bridge.
> Traffic drives on the left (ie Thai rules) acoss the entire
bridge, and the 2 lanes separate at the Laos end of the bridge, then
cross over each other at an X intersection with a traffic light,
before the Laos lane enters the Lao customs/immigration area (and for
Thai-bound trafic, immediately after leaving the Laos
customs/immigration area, and before it gets onto the bridge).
> Signs in English (and Thai/Lao) warn of the change in rules of
the road at the approach to the X intersection.
> Traffic is not heavy, so the lights were not in use.
> Pedestraiasn are not allowed on the bridge. There is no footpath.
One lan of traffic in each direction. In addition, a Railway line
runs in the middle of the bridge from the Thai side, but the tracks
stop halfway across. Laos has never committed the money to continuing
them on its side.
> There are therefore still no railays at all in Laos.
>
> I also crossed at Chongmek, between Pakse (Laos) and Ubon
Ratchathani (Thailand) in the south of Laos. Laos and Thai traffic
can cross here,but is light enough that after customs on each side,
there is no official signs (at least in English) saying which side to
drive on. A 2-lane road crosses the boundary, but only the left hand
side (Laos) [ie right hand side for Thailand drivers] had the double-
gate open. Thus driving from Laos to Thailand (from the right hand
side to left), you drive to the line on the right, through the gate
on the left and stay on the left.
> Likewise for Thais entering Laos, you drive up to the line on the
left, across the line on the right and stay on the right.
>
> French wine (and Chinese wine) is dirt cheap on the Lao side of
this crossing, while Lao wine (which I prefer) was hard to find!
>
> As with my crossing here last year, there seems to be no official
border pillars. At least the pillars the guards pointed out to us
were just fence posts or highway distance markers.
>
> The Lao/Cam/Thai tripoint is still off limits due to UXO as much
as anything.
>
> Thai maps of this area are off limits (supposedly so the hais
don't offend Laos/Cambodia ith their preferred location of the
border), even the censored civilian-issue 1:50,000 series, and the
1:250,000 series. Yet Lao happily sells its 1:200,000 and 1:100,000
sheets...
>
> I walked the Singpaore-Malaysia causeway, and there is no nice
brass pin or line to show the exact boundary, but the road seal
changes at the point where the causeway widens and the 'welcome to
malaysia' sign stands (there is no similar welcoming sign in the
opther direction: you are farewelled from Malaysia and enter the
unwelcoming Republic of Lee!. Yet 5 metres on into Malaysia is a
small olympic medal dias sort of thing, with a line painted on it,
which presumably used o be where tourists could stand, on each side
of the line for photos. But it appeared old and un-used.
> I will post photos later when back home.
>
> ON the Malay-Thai crossing at Padang Besa by train, you get of
the train, pass thrugh Malay customs at one end o the station, then
Thai at the other bfefore reboarding the trian, but this happens
entirely within Mlaysia. After reboarding the ain continues north and
the entire ail yard is Malay and fenced off from Thailand, and the
train passes through a sliding gate into Thailand and north.
>
> Brendan
>
>
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