Behind the Smile

2 THE VISA RUN TO LAOS-3

“Oh, s**t. We cannot take money from the UK bank. Do you have your card?”

“No. I not take any gold or cards with me, I think it is not safe in Laos, because I do not know here.”

“Right... so we cannot get any money from the banks and we are on holiday in Laos. Great! I’m not blaming you... I am just saying. I am thinking aloud. How much money do you have?”

“Thai money?”

“What else? Do you have any Chinese?”

Lek was already counting out some notes. “A little more than seven thousand Baht.”

“OK, the visa costs nineteen hundred, I believe, so we have money to last for now, but we either have to go home early or.... This is bloody daft, eh? Who goes abroad with no money, eh? Only us! Come on, let’s go out. We can change a thousand Baht and enjoy ourselves. We can deal with it all tomorrow. Are you ready? Come on then, my dear.”

They turned left out of the hotel and walked the three hundred yards to the bureau de change that they had spotted earlier in the day. The exchange rate was two hundred and fifty-one Kip to the Baht and Lek was as delighted as a child at Christmas to be given a quarter of a million Kip for her one thousand Baht note.

She felt very rich and very superior, which were sensations that she was not accustomed to.

“Look at all this money, Craig! Look!”

“Yes, Lek, it’s a thousand Baht in Kip. The numbers don’t matter, it is the value that counts.”

But she wasn’t listening again, just counting the notes over and over.

“Where do you want to eat, dear?” asked Craig.

“Oh, we can eat anywhere with this sort of money,” she replied. “How about that open-air restaurant on the pavement near the hotel? The food looked very nice and they had the big prawns that you like.”

So, they walked back towards the hotel and sat at an empty table in the restaurant area. When the waiter came, Craig ordered two beer Lao’s, ice and a glass. When that had arrived, Lek went with the waiter to select the food that she wanted cooked for them.

Lek was in her element, but Craig was feeling rather stupid for not having checked his ATM cards.

The food that Lek picked was fit for a king. They had a dozen huge prawns, a large, steamed, pink river fish, spare ribs, salad and shellfish. Just as they were struggling to get to the end of it all, Craig ordered another round of beer. The waiter looked at his watch and said:

“It is nine o’ clock. We close now. Everything in Vientiane close now, but you can have one more, if you are quick. You must finish before I clean everything away... OK?”

Craig agreed. Lek and Craig stared at each other.

“Surely, the capital city of Laos doesn’t close at nine thirty, Lek?”

“That is what he said. Look around you. Lights are going out, people are going home.”

Lek spoke to the waiter when he returned with the beers and the bill. He confirmed that the city did indeed close at nine thirty by order of the government. Lek was not all that bothered, because she normally went to bed at nine thirty anyway, but she was shocked when she saw the bill of a hundred and eight-five thousand Kip.

∞

They rose at seven thirty, showered and went down for breakfast. There were both Thai and ‘European’ styles, so they were both happy with that. Then they went back to the room, picked up their paperwork for the visa and went back down. Another surprise awaited them- they needed sixty thousand Kip to get to the embassy and back in a broken-down, tuk-tuk motorbike taxi, so they had to change another thousand Baht. Lek was not so impressed with the two hundred and fifty thousand Kip she collected after seeing how fast it could run through her fingers.

At the Thai embassy, Craig collected his form, filled it in, stuck his two photos on it and waited for his number to be called. When it was, he went up to the counter. The immigration official looked over his document quickly and said:

“Marriage certificate.”

Craig called for Lek, who came running, as she hated to keep officials waiting. They talked. Lek looked in her bag. Then said something and the official said:

“Next!” A man tried to take Craig’s place at the counter.

“Hey! Stop pushing! Wait your bloody turn! Excuse me, what is the problem with my application?”

“Your wife no have marriage certificate and no have house book. I cannot gib you non-immigrant ‘O’ visa. Next!”

“No, wait! So what can I do about it?”

“You can go back and get all your papers I need. Next!”

“But that will take a day or more...”

“Not my problem. I must see papers. You not have papers. What can I do? Next!”

“Isn’t there anything I can do? How about if I change my application for a two-month tourist visa?”

“No can do, I know what you want now already. I cannot do that. Next!”

“This is crazy!”

“Send your wife home get. You can go too or wait here in Vientiane, now please go. Next!”

Craig turned to glare at the man who was hovering behind him. He backed off a little.

“OK, I can accept fax of papers this one time, because I see you have long visa before. Now go. Next!”

Craig bumped the next guy in the queue as he exited the line.

“Isn’t it bloody marvellous? Why do I need to prove I’m married to get that visa. Your ID has your name ‘Williams’ on it; your passport has bloody ‘Williams’ in it. It’s not a very common name in Thailand, is it? Do they think I searched Thailand for a Thai woman called Williams so I could get a ninety-day visa instead of a sixty-day one? Jesus! That makes me so angry. Well, now we are stuck here. Tomorrow is Friday, so if we hand the forms in then, we won’t get them back until Monday. OK, back to the hotel.

“And we don’t have any money! s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t, sodding s**t!”

Back in their room, Lek phoned her mother to go into their house to get the documents and fax them to their hotel. Her mother was pretty worried about taking on such a hi-tech venture, but she assured Lek that she would get it done with someone’s help. Meanwhile, Craig Skyped his friend in Barry, Blond Billy, and asked him to lend them £300 for a week or so. Billy agreed to wire the money care of the hotel.

The money actually arrived before the paperwork from Thailand, but they eventually had everything they needed and Lek went back to the bureau de change with $420 to exchange some of it for a million Kip. Holding a million Kip had as much effect on her as two hundred and fifty thousand had the day before.

In the afternoon, they went for a walk along the Mekong again and then back to the hotel. It was really too hot to do much and there didn’t seem much to do anyway.

In the evening, they ate at a different, but similar outdoor restaurant and the bill at nine thirty was about the same. Lek concluded that Vientiane was a lot more expensive than Bangkok and if she could have gone home the next day she would have, but there was still the visa to get.

The visa application went smoothly enough, although the transaction could not be completed in one day. It has to be applied for on one day and collected the following business day, which meant staying until Monday. They both reckoned that they would have had enough of Vientiane by then to make going back home no hardship.

Lao people were friendly enough and Vientiane was easier for Westerners that most Thai cities including most areas of Bangkok, but there was so little to do and it was so expensive.

On Monday morning, they got up just in time not to miss breakfast, ate slowly and then checked out. They booked a taxi to the bridge but asked him to wait at the embassy first. The embassy opened for the collection of visas after lunch at one-thirty, so they had plenty of time to start their long-winded return trip home.

Sitting in the bus to Phitsanulok, both were analysing their ‘holiday’. Both thought that it had gone well considering and both felt better for having spent so much time alone away from Lek’s distractions in the village. As she felt the tablets kicking in again, Lek reached out under the blanket and took Craig’s hand and he squeezed it back.