I am starting to notice a pattern between no yoga practice in the morning and getting in trouble during the day!!!...and of course I love to find myself getting in trouble even if I have officials in front of me...
I mean they are, or maybe they just play the role of, officials, even if some of them are wearing a plain old fashioned white t-shirt (health vest?)...but guess what?! they are still THE officials and you don't wanna run your game in their country, so you should play by their rules!!
That's what I should have thought if I had spent some 15-20 minutes breathing slowly and excercising.....but I didn't, the minivan pick up was estimated for 7:30 (arrived at 8:05 ) and the day before I was up at 4:30 for the sunrise half day trip of the Angkor temples....I have no excuses, I know...
On the minivan we were 10, two scandinavians, two germans, a swiss couple, a austrian, a irish, a japanese and me!!!
The Dong Kralor-Veun Khan land border crossing is the only one between Cambodia and Lao and very well known in this region for being one of the few where if you wanna get stamped out and stamped in you have to pay a 2 US$ fee! (a self set fee from the officials)...
I have always been very annoyed at this kind of corrupted behaviours and I always worked a plan to win over it, and if I have on my records succeeded at Rosso (Mauritania-Senegal) or at Montenegro-Albania one, I knew I had little chances here!!
But that's the challenge, isn't it?? I had even the back up of the rest of the minivan (except the japanese!!)..
After a good 30 minutes of stand up against the wooden stall that the cambodian immigration office is, we managed to get stamped out without paying the "fee", yet the official spitefully stamped us in the middle of a brand new passport page and even worst for me, that I was the head of the revolution, on two separate pages pretending one was a mistake and stamping "cancel" on it!!
Another "battle" waited for us to enter Lao that of course enjoys of a privileged and better position knowing you wouldn't go back to Cambodia just because of the "fee"!!!
A good 40 minutes of haggling and discussion didn't get our passports stamped for free, other travellers would just pass in front of us, complain of the corruptive behaviour, pay and go...
Even our driver started to play by the official side unloading our bags from the minivan and threatening to leave us there..
When we gave up and felt it was enough the wait, and also the useless "Don Chisciotte against the windmills" fight, we paid the fee even though they did oppose against stamping mine of course!!
As soon as they did though we left with our (mine!!) threat to go and talk to the officials in the capital Vientiane as I had taken down their names...
The day (finally) smoothly ended in Don Det, one of the Si Phan Don (four thousand islands) on the Mekong river in a spartan bungalow with a hammock, a bed and a mosquito net over the water for 5 US$, amongst overweight ducks, cute kids, shy internet connection, nicotine addict locals, happy meals (THC added!!) for tourists and not much to do!!!
I mean they are, or maybe they just play the role of, officials, even if some of them are wearing a plain old fashioned white t-shirt (health vest?)...but guess what?! they are still THE officials and you don't wanna run your game in their country, so you should play by their rules!!
That's what I should have thought if I had spent some 15-20 minutes breathing slowly and excercising.....but I didn't, the minivan pick up was estimated for 7:30 (arrived at 8:05 ) and the day before I was up at 4:30 for the sunrise half day trip of the Angkor temples....I have no excuses, I know...
On the minivan we were 10, two scandinavians, two germans, a swiss couple, a austrian, a irish, a japanese and me!!!
The Dong Kralor-Veun Khan land border crossing is the only one between Cambodia and Lao and very well known in this region for being one of the few where if you wanna get stamped out and stamped in you have to pay a 2 US$ fee! (a self set fee from the officials)...
I have always been very annoyed at this kind of corrupted behaviours and I always worked a plan to win over it, and if I have on my records succeeded at Rosso (Mauritania-Senegal) or at Montenegro-Albania one, I knew I had little chances here!!
But that's the challenge, isn't it?? I had even the back up of the rest of the minivan (except the japanese!!)..
After a good 30 minutes of stand up against the wooden stall that the cambodian immigration office is, we managed to get stamped out without paying the "fee", yet the official spitefully stamped us in the middle of a brand new passport page and even worst for me, that I was the head of the revolution, on two separate pages pretending one was a mistake and stamping "cancel" on it!!
Another "battle" waited for us to enter Lao that of course enjoys of a privileged and better position knowing you wouldn't go back to Cambodia just because of the "fee"!!!
A good 40 minutes of haggling and discussion didn't get our passports stamped for free, other travellers would just pass in front of us, complain of the corruptive behaviour, pay and go...
Even our driver started to play by the official side unloading our bags from the minivan and threatening to leave us there..
When we gave up and felt it was enough the wait, and also the useless "Don Chisciotte against the windmills" fight, we paid the fee even though they did oppose against stamping mine of course!!
As soon as they did though we left with our (mine!!) threat to go and talk to the officials in the capital Vientiane as I had taken down their names...
The day (finally) smoothly ended in Don Det, one of the Si Phan Don (four thousand islands) on the Mekong river in a spartan bungalow with a hammock, a bed and a mosquito net over the water for 5 US$, amongst overweight ducks, cute kids, shy internet connection, nicotine addict locals, happy meals (THC added!!) for tourists and not much to do!!!
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