A piece of advice for Laos

When people ask me if I enjoyed my time in Laos, I think of the tiered waterfalls of Luang Prabang, consider the house party thrown for us by our seventeen year old barman and three people on a moped, I remember smoking a spliff as I drifted through the Mekong river on an inner tube and wince at the memory of a four hour kayak adventure on the same river. But the one bit of advice I give aspiring travellers is take a padlock with you and lock your room properly in Laos or you may have to deal with Laoish police if an item gets stolen from your room!

The police in Laos are not violent, or aggressive towards travellers. In fact they are extraordinarily friendly and were only too happy to engage in conversation once they had found out that my camera had been stolen. It took me three trips to the police station before I had any success. The first time someone told me to return for the translator. Not a problem at all. I returned the following day and had the same person tell me in broken English that he was, in effect, the translator as no one else spoke English. He smiled broadly at me through the cracks in the large oak door and handed me an address of the local Navigation board who he said could help me.

I returned the next day after finding out the local Navigation Board was actually a travel agents who were merely trying to sell me a ticket a day down the river to the village of hell where my camera was stolen. The friendly policeman this time let me in and I explained to him, and the crowded room of smiling policemen, that I wasn’t bothered if I never saw my camera again, I just wanted him to say I had reported it for insurance purposes. “Oh no” he laughed “we catch him, but first you must return to village and find a witness otherwise no paper for you!”

The next day I sent a fax to Barclaycard explaining that I would have to catch the criminal who stole my camera if I wanted a crime report and received response that it wasn’t an uncommon request. Apparently this sort of thing happened all the time.