Esperando

In Spanish, the words "hoping" and "waiting" are the same. Since we have spent the last week doing a significant amount of both, this is a fitting title for this post.

The waiting began as soon as we entered Vientiane's waters and a speedboat pulled up next to the Sinking Princess with two men dressed in tee shirts and jeans who seemed to want us to follow them. They brought us to a Lao immigration office, where the first man in uniform that we had ever seen in Lao demanded our passports.

Now that I realize how much of our time would be spent with men in this exact uniform, the situation doesn't seem quite as funny as it did at the time, but when it was happening we were certain that this man only wanted to make sure these three "phalangs" (foreigners) weren't wanted fugitives.

He kept our passports for two hours while we sat and tried to mime to him our intentions. This proved difficult due to the lack of an internationally accepted gesture for "we bought a boat and just want to keep going, please let us have our passports and boat back."

This actually isn't a photograph, it's a two hour long movie. Stay tuned to see something happen!

Eventually the English speaking reinforcements arrived and it quickly became clear that our waiting had just begun.  "Phalang no can buy boat in Lao," he repeatedly informed us. When he took us into his private office we were hopeful that a few hundred thousand kip may grease the rusty wheels of bureaucracy, but to the credit of this officer, he was actually offended at our offer. Instead of our money, he just wanted our stories: why are we in Lao? Why couldn't we take buses like all the other tourists?

After hours of this, we heard what would be the first of many references to the enigmatic "Big Boss," who, as of this writing, none of us have met.  It seemed that even though our journey wasn't technically legal, it may be possible for the Big Boss to grant an exception and let us pass down the rest of the river.

A walk to the police station.

After five hours at the office, the police put us in the back of their truck and took us to a guesthouse with instructions to be waiting for them at 9:00 the next morning to sort this all out.

The first journey in a Lao police truck (sorry I can't take pictures)

They arrived 6 hours late.

Since then, we have spent the days transporting ourselves back and forth between different guesthouses and police stations, slowly climbing the hierarchy of the Lao immigration office.  Needless to say, patience has been waning and tensions waxing amongst the crew of the Sinking Princess. 

One night, after spending yet another day dealing with this nonsense and feeling a real need to forget about Lao police for a few hours, we decided to unwind by buying beers and drinking them by the river which had, up til now, been our highway, shower, sink, and--of course--toilet.

We had just popped the caps when four young police officers with AK-47s proudly strapped to their shoulders marched over and squatted beside us. Without a word, one of them began to search my bag. Another searched the French guy. We were frustrated, but since we were doing nothing illegal, we let them search in the hopes that they would then leave us alone.

Then they took our passports. They gave our documents cursory glances, mumbled to themselves, seemingly disappointed that everything checked out, and then handed my passport back. Then the Swiss guy got his. But they kept the French passport. Now we were really starting to get angry. As the other two played tug-of-war with the remaining passport, one of the officers took me to the side and said "you give me 200,000 Kip."

Normally I may have just paid the fine (it's about $25), if only for the sake of ending the hassle, but after days of dealing with Lao police I am proud to say that I didn't acquiesce. Instead I told the man to go fuck himself. Despite his limited English, he seemed to understand.

They knew we were in the right, and after we offered them cigarettes (even if you don't smoke, you should never travel without cigarettes, they are the cheapest situation-smoother you can buy) their mood quickly changed and they let us go.

As far as the boat goes, right now we are cleared with immigration, but our boat is still seized. Tomorrow we go to the harbor office to see if we can somehow get it back. I'm hopeful, but not optimistic.

If this gray cloud of Communist bureaucracy has any silver lining, it lies in the fact that while our journey may not have charted any new geographic waters, we can at least say we've mapped some new political/legal ones. Certainly others have traveled down the Mekong, but I can confidently say that we are the only foreigners in recent history to do so in our own boat, and though we haven't covered as much ground as we would have liked, it has at least been a novel travel experience and the days on the river have been amazing. And who knows, maybe tomorrow will bring good news?

I enjoy spending the days here...

...and nights here.

Now that you are up to date on the sinking princess saga, some unrelated pictures!

Obviously we all know that French guys are legally required to begin smoking at age 12, but I would think it was forbidden for monks.

At least this city sells coffee, in US or French versions.

This 72 year old Laotian lawyer is a real man of claims. He is the Lao 5000m record holder, with a time of 18 mins. He coached a teenage John McEnroe. He played and lost a game of ping-pong with Pele (the soccer star), but then beat him in tennis 6-0, 6-0. He knows, but dislikes, George Steinbrenner, but is buddies with Hank Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG. The diversity and ridiculousness of all these claims almost makes me believe him.