Yes. Until the thais fucked up a good thing for me I was able to pop over the bridge connecting Laos to Thailand most weekends for the purpose of shopping for the nitty gritty items from farangland . Prayuth turned that into 2 times a year. The focker. I used to love a weekend in udon. Do some shopping then spank the beers with udon based mates. A lot of Vientiane expats did the same. Apparently it was all about cracking down on visa runners. A loophole they created themselves.had to stop going . I always kept at least 1 land crossing to Thailand incase of medical emergency. Etc