Blame Game

Hi every one!

We successfully made it to Laos.  The land of a million elephants.  So far we have seen two.  From our boat ride down the Mekong that started in Thailand and ended in Laos.  Two villagers riding on them from their fields.  Anyhow, it was the slow boat and let me tell you what, it was the slowwwwwwbooooaaaatttttt.  Lazying down the Mekong river through some beautiful country, getting a small passing glimpse at life in rural Laos.  I think that Kira might have a bit more to add on her slow boat experience, but the second day was much better than the first.  The good news was that the boat dropped us off in Luang Prabang, a very beautiful city that has a large Provincial French influence from the colonial period.  I learned a little more about that time today at the National Museum.  When you can't read all the script, pictures help to fill you in, like the mural of the French soldiers bayonetting villagers and dumping children into waterwells.  I was able to pick out some parts about American Imperialists and their Laos puppets.  A little funny but considering the 80 million unexploded bombs that exist in NE Laos they have a right to be upset about US interference.  More bombs were dropped here than in Europe during all of WWII.  People still lose limbs here while doing their daily business - farming, hunting, playing.  Most of the victims are children, of course. One plane load of bombs every nine minutes for 1964 until 1973 - or something like that. 

Well, I am getting a little sidetracked.  The Laos brainwashing is working... Just kidding.  So we had a wonderful stay in Luang Prabang.  We rented a tandem bike one day and rode regular cruisers around most other days.  We got to go to a beautiful series of waterfalls where you could swim in limestone filtered aquamarine water and jump from the rope swing.  This trip was enjoyed by some new friends we made named Damien and Cristina.  Hailing from the Melbourne area, we hit it off and got to hang a bit in Luang Prabang.  We also took a cool kayak trip down the Nan Seung river into the Mekong to go to a cave where people bring Buddha statues that are no longer wanted elsewhere.  A cool spot up in the side of a rock wall on the Mekong.  We got to enjoy the trip with some new friends, Giles and Lucy and some old friends, Ian and Sarah.  The latter couple we had met way back in January on the island of Flores in Indonesia.  We just happened to run into them in Luang Prabang randomly.  One of the small joys of traveling and meeting new people is that you randomly re-meet and share stories and trade travel tips if you have been somewhere they might be headed.

So I am getting a little sidetracked here from my title purpose, but I just wanted to fill in some details from the last week or so of our lives.  For me, one of the best stories and also most stressful times was the day that we planned to leave the wonderful town of Luang Prabang.  Good-bye whitewashed walls and large shuttered windows.  Good-bye beautiful Laoatian handicraft markets.  Good-bye orange clothed novice monks walking through the streets and swimming in the Nam Seung River.  Good-bye same novice monks doing backflips and breakdance moves and faux kung-fu fighting with one another...  Hey, 14 year old boys aren't too much different wherever you go.  Anyhow, we had bought our minibus tickets to a town called Vang Vieng and were all packed up to go.  We had checked out of our hotel and had been able to store our goods there while we went out for lunch and took in a Wat (Buddhist temple) before we got our ride at 1:30.  On the way out from the Wat, I stopped at the entrance to buy some postcards (the price was right!) and stamps.  Kira and I hopped on our orange cruiser bikes and headed back to our hotel to wrap it up and get out of town.  I am not sure what happened next, but somewhere between the postcard purchase and partway back to the hotel, I noticed that my wallet was not where I thought it was.  Uggghhhhhh...  I don't want to point fingers or do the Blame Game.  No one wins at the Blame Game!  Well, we still aren't sure if it was Kira's fault or my fault.  We may never know.  But let's let bygones be bygones.  Lost wallet Amnesty.

The next thing I remember after this unfortunate discovery was a frantic, racing mind (about 20 minutes until bus departure) and a really hot sweat beginning to seep (or maybe spout) out of my pores.  The retracing of steps times 2 turned up no wallet.  So Kira went back to the hotel to tell the manager (who sold us the bus tickets) that we would not be going and to find out if we could get our room back and change the tickets for the next day.  I went back to retrace one last time and began asking individuals if they had seen anything.  Unfortunately, the word wallet is not one that most Laos people know in English.  Do you know the Laos word for wallet?  I don't.  Anyhow, most people had no idea what I was talking about.  My next step was to go to the police station and see if anyone had returned the lost wallet there.  Using the horrible Lonely Planet map to try and find the head station, I blundered around town, asked some people where it was.  This included one guy, who was very nice but very unhelpful.  Our conversation went like this:
Me: "Do you know where the Police Station is?"
Him: "Yes"
Me: "Police?  Here?"
Him: "Yeah Yeah" - pointing down the street.
Me: "Police this way or that way?"  - me pointing in two different directions, my light blue shirt sweat stained dark blue by this point, sweat dripping off my forwhead...
Him: "Yes" - smiling and nodding.
Me: "Kawp Jai" (Thank you in Laos)

Some help!  Very agreeable guy, though.  I was at the end of my rope and totally defeated.  Praying that someone would return the wallet to the police, I continued my search for the station.  It didn't take me long to find it after that. I also learned that the police station is closed on Sundays.  What what what?!!!  Incredulous, I headed back to the hotel and to let Kira know that I was still empty handed.

Walking into the hotel lobby, I saw Kira hanging out as she greeted me with a huge smile!  While I was running around town trying to find the closed police station, two boys had called the hotel and reported that they had found my wallet.  Hallelujah!!!  All we had to do was sit and wait until they brought it over.  3 hours later, they rolled in and they had my wallet.  However, everything was rearranged.  Uh-oh!  This looks weird.  Then the hotel manager translated for them that since they had found it and left it as it was then I could do something nice for them and give them their 300,000 kip reward.  Divide that by 8000 kip to a US dollar and they wanted 35 bucks!  I was like, what?!  The background soundtrack had been playing the Hallelujah Chorus and all the sudden it came to a screeching halt.  Record skip.  In their defense I have to say that all the contents were in my wallet (except for 2000 kip - 25 cents), just rearranged.  But immediately warning sirens went off.  This wonderful, nice deed was being flipped into wallet extortion.  I thought back to 1994 and my buddy Jeffer and I having to ransom our stolen bikes in Grand Rapids.

So the hotel manager told Kira and I that the boy who found the wallet would kindly take me to the closest ATM and I could withdraw the money and he would be on his way, with his buddy.  It started to rain.  The internal warning siren was blaring at this point.  Kira and I were staring at each other in disbelief.  One thing was for certain, I wasn't going to the ATM on no moped.  Kira and I hopped back on the orange cruiser bikes and rode to the nearest ATM.  Card wouldn't work!  Invalid this or that.  Now the alarm is really blaring.  These nice 14 year old boys that did such a nice deed had our card for three or four hours.  Scenarios were running rampant in our heads.  The boys had older brothers and now they had the card numbers...  They had already drained our account.

Next ATM worked.  Phew!  Next stop, internet cafe to check our account balances.  Nothing unusual.  On the way back (30-40 minutes later) we decided that 37 dollars was way to much of a reward for a good deed.  It was saving us from a huge pain in the butt of having to cancel cards and then get them reissued somehow, but still.  We arrived and it was kind of weird for a minute as the boy was grinning at us expecting his reward.  A new hotel guy was there and I asked him to tell the boy that we are very thankful for what he had done, but that we don't have a lot of money and that to us 300,000 kip was a lot of cash.  I asked the hotel guy if 200,000 sounded reasonable (did I mention that one night at the hotel was 90,000) and he nodded.  Our translator then asked the boy if 200,000 would be satisfactory.  The boy agreed.  We handed over the "reward" and that was that.

In the meantime we got our old room back (it was cleaned as a consolation prize) and were able to go get some food.  It was almost 5 and we hadn't eaten since about 9 o'clock that morning.  No money, no eat!

So that is the story of the lost wallet.  Blame game.  Actually, the next day I was wearing the same shorts and the vertical zipper pocket that my wallet was in split and was completely open.  I plead not guilty by reason of faulty craftsmanship! 

Later, I checked the tag of the shorts.  Made in Laos...


hi friends, Kira here.  Just wanted to amend the above entry a teensy.  We just realized that we haven't written about Thailand at all.  Wow, we were there for a full month.  As this internet cafe closes in 10 minutes, those stories will have to wait . . .
so, to add to our slowboat experience--we thought we had won the lottery when we got to the very back of the boat where there was tons of space and some super cool people to hang out with for the next 8 hours.  We were all cracking jokes and laughing it up as we lounged and spread out.  Then, before we set sail, another wave or two of Westerners showed up and joined our party.  It started getting a bit crowded.  Then another wave of Lao people appeared near the back of the boat.  They sat on the floor of the boat in the next section where there was a giant mound of backpacks.  A short while after we departed, someone walked through the backpack room into our area (which turned out to be the smoking section of the boat--Kira was *super* stoked about that) to smoke and we heard a loud crack.  It was the floor.  After a few more hours and a couple more people stepping through the floor (not to the water!), the Lao folks were told to get off the floor and come and squeeze inbetween all of us.  we were already pretty cramped.  Good thing that they were fairly small people, however the one woman traveling with them who had a permanent stink face, decided she'd take up 3x's the space that she should.  Anyways, after 8 glorious hours, we made it to Pak Beng and the next morning, we had a different boat.  With floors in tact. 
signing off with LOVE.