On 30 April 2025, the first day of Vietnam's holiday, travellers crowded the Lao Cai border crossing on trips to China. One visitor who joined at 5 a.m. passed the Vietnamese building and then entered a second queue on the Chinese side, spending seven hours in the process. Another waited from 3:30 a.m. until close to noon.
The crossing handled an estimated 5,000 travellers, nearly twice the previous year's peak holiday day. Groups using passports were also prioritised over groups using border passes, so the system was not a single first-come line. Waiting accumulated through two national checkpoints and a document-based order of priority.