We successfully crossed out of China into Laos, yahoo!

The border crossing out of China took a lot of time because we arrived at the border at the beginning of the border control's 3-hour lunch break so we got to wait for them to have their 3-hour lunch, ha. Once we exited China, the Laos side was simple to apply for the visa and enter but when I tried to pay for my visa, they wouldn't take my USD - it was "too old" and not "crispy" enough and we didn't have any Chinese Yuan left since we were told we should pay with USD. I was with our friend Chichi so we ran into the problem together which was a nice bonding moment of being frustrated together, haha. We tried taking out local currency at the ATM after getting an escort from the government to a bank but they only wanted USD or Chinese Yuan. We tried to exchange the money at multiple banks and none of the banks would take the old bills. Thankfully, we had some crispy, new bills in our bike trunk (which was with Austin) so it all turned out okay, just a couple hour delay.

After 30 days of an intense schedule in China, we are taking the first few days in Laos to catch up on sleep, computer work, friends/family messages, social media posts, etc.

Austin "catching" a rainbow as we ride to the China/Laos border:

Walking in "no man's land" to the border control on the Laos side: