The Dogcatcher does Laos

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:13 PM

Sorry it was Marmite

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:17 PM

I know this is wrong place butt Dirtydog is the server for the web hosting you offer in Thailand?

**dirtydog** · 23-01-2009, 07:28 PM

Nope, America.

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:48 PM

GF and daughter.

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:50 PM

Funny looking little thing, but a good heart.

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:52 PM

Vientiene.

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:54 PM

Resaurant out back hotel Mongol.

**the dogcatcher** · 23-01-2009, 07:57 PM

This is view of Mekong from the back of a farang Italianos gaff.

**MeMock** · 24-01-2009, 07:31 AM

Originally Posted by the dogcatcher

I,ve got more pics. They need to be resized and the you can see them. Didn't MeMock I think it was complain earier in the thread about my use of paragraphs.
So I stopped doing it.

Nope wasn't me. I like paragraphs and photos.

**the dogcatcher** · 24-01-2009, 08:35 AM

Yeah, sorry it was Marmite that complained.

**MeMock** · 24-01-2009, 08:39 AM

Thats all he ever does.

**Nawty** · 24-01-2009, 08:45 AM

and shag apparently....or dream maybe.

**the dogcatcher** · 24-01-2009, 09:49 AM

As I said before "DUMP"

**MeMock** · 24-01-2009, 10:02 AM

What did you actually expect?

watterinja · 24-01-2009, 10:20 AM

Laos does not encourage debt, so folks build their homes a little bit at a time, when cash is available.

Even motorcycles, kubotas are purchased with cash.

Don't be so hard on the lack of eye-candy. The folks are hard-working & honest, in the main.

**MeMock** · 24-01-2009, 10:22 AM

The house is a dump, the road is to bumpy, my girlfriend looks funny....

**the dogcatcher** · 24-01-2009, 10:34 AM

All agreed with, I was expecting that after a week of cleaning perhaps a little more. Specifically the family are not poor by comparison to others in Laos. They all earn over 100 uk pounds a month, in Laos that's good.

**the dogcatcher** · 24-01-2009, 10:58 AM

DAY 4.

I had descided the previos day that I needed a rest from the morning teeth rattler so GF was going to come into town on the bus. She arrived about 2 hours before she was due (trying to catch me out, if you understand my meaning).
She had been on an open bus and was broadly the same shade of brown as the dust, she insisted on a shower and didn't blame her.
Nothing much to do today other than collect her visa, which after breakfast (another superb offering from the hotel) we commenced with. I wanted to get to the consulate early and we had plenty of time since visa collection is only after 1.00 pm. (Being last in any queue in Asian is an order of magnitude worse than being first). To that end we went over to the other side of town for an investigation. Other than the odd monument, statue and wat I couldn't really find anything of interest so we went to a bar near the consulate where I preceeded to drink. GF went off at 12.30 to get visa and didn't reappear for 3 hours. By that time I was on my 6th large beer Laos. (didn't like it at first but grows on you) and was contemplating food. A large fillet of white fish in tariaki sauce, delicious!
By 8 o'clock that night I was puking my guts. Never mind.
Bit of a boring day, only made worse by bad food.

Tomorrow the trip home.

**MeMock** · 24-01-2009, 02:04 PM

Why didn't you sleep at the GF's house?

**the dogcatcher** · 24-01-2009, 03:05 PM

Firstly it was freezing cold, secondly it's a dump, thirdly I like my creature comforts and lastly it's illegal. Can you imagen some of the jealous thoughts going round the village when GF turns up with rich farang with new car, her wearing new clothes, and having money in her pocket. Now I don't know whether her family is liked round there but a call to the local filth out of jealousy or poverty ie the caller gets half the 5000$ bung that I would have to pay to get me out of the shit for sleeping with a Laos national is all I need. There are many stoties on the net. One fellow had been all over the world, live in the U.S. with his Laos GF and had the complete blessing of all the family. He went back to obtain correct paperwork for marriage and two days later, in came the door out came the $5000 and he was deported. The jealousy thing is big here where I live, when I first came to Samnakthong all the girls ever spoke about for 3 months is why I had chosen a Laos girl, what was wrong with Thai girls. still a bit goes on now especially after my house was started. We even had insults sprayed on the road outside, this was quickly sorted out by me befriending the local top cop, now I play golf with him every other Thursday. No probs.

**hillbilly** · 25-01-2009, 02:07 AM

Nice report thus far. The only suggestion that I might offer is shorter paragraphs with more pics.

**PBateman** · 26-01-2009, 01:04 AM

Great report! Don't worry about the paragraph lenghts. Just keep em coming.

**expatudon08** · 27-01-2009, 03:59 AM

Originally Posted by MeMock

I hope there are pics to come as well.

good post but as above put a couple of photos in makes a great post

dont be lazy

**the dogcatcher** · 27-01-2009, 08:07 PM

Trip home.

It had been descided (I descided) that GF would stay at the hotel the night before we came home to facilitate a quick getaway so she did. Aside from the quick getaway I had started to despise the rubbish road and bits had started to fall off the car. (two of the plastic bits over the windows and the rear number plate).
We set off at 7am the first stop being to buy alot of bottles of Laos champaigne (I think), the labels all in Laos and since they disappeared the morning after we got home I never found out, I didn't even bother asking. The second stop was for fags, again lots, they disappeared as well which didn't bothered me at all since I had tried a Laos cigarette when Papa offered me a straight swap of a pack of his for a pack of mine (he definately got the better deal). And so to the border.
Getting out of Laos in a car is as simple as getting out of Thailand, it costs no money (I think) and takes about 5 mins just for your passports (yours and the cars) to be stamped etc etc. I was relieved that it was so easy because I had yet another massive hangover (laos whiskey induced) and I wanted to get on with the 1000 odd kms in front of us, besides this we had to meet daughter in Sangkhom again at about 9.30.
So we arrived in Thailand, and getting back in was easy, with a twist. Remember on day 2 I said that the last step in getting out of Thailand with a car was "get in car and go without thinking you've just been scammed" or something like that, well had you done this you would have been wrong and this is how the scam works. The trap is set for you up front, it is simple and clever. Remember the 2 forms that I filled out in duplicate (payed police to do) well, they are the two forms that you retain and allow you to get your car back into Thailand. They are meant to be signed by the man (i think) that stamps you passports and in our case he had conveniently forgotten to do it. This, I was informed by the nice thief that greeted us (smiling) could only be rectified by a small donation (200 baht) to The Retirement Home For Thai Police Dogs. No problem but I told him I had to go to the A.T.M because I had no baht. He kindly agreed and off I went. In went my card, in went the P.I.N. and up came the message "Transaction cancelled, please refer the card issuer". "WHAT?" I thought, "there's quite alot of money in there, must be a problem with tha machine" So I tried one of my Spanish cards and managed to get a measly 1000 baht (everything in that account) this raised the alarm bells very loudly. Now I dont know about your cards, but if my card is refused by one A.T.M. then it's refused by ALL the machines in Thailand for 24 hours, this meant we had nearly no money for fuel and would have even less after the scamming bastards on the boarder got their bung. Anyway I had to pay them so I did and off we went. (clever little Thai boys). We drove back to Sangkhom slowly (fuel), I was expecting to see GFs daughter waiting for us but no. In true Asian style daughter was not instructed to leave Laos until we got there so we had an hour to wait, I did point out to GF that there was a lack of joined up thinking going on here but, hey this is Asia, where there's usually no thinking going on at all.
Whilst we were waiting GF descided that she was hungry and proceeded to spend 100 of our now 800 baht on weed soup, or that's what it looked like. I didn't seen her do this, and when I realised I went spare. "YOU STUPID COW, HAVENT YOU TWIGGED WE'RE FLAMMING POTLESS" I shouted (came out as "darling I think we need to be a little more carefull with the money, we haven't much for fuel). I actually was quite concerned, I had calculated that that 700 baht plus the fuel we had would be just enough and all it would take is another bung and we were screwed. I put it out of my head, I'll worry about it if it happens I thought.
Standing there on my own (GF was off witering with a couple old girls by the som tom moped) I came to the attention of some of my fellow smugglers. I was approached by a little old man (everybody little in Thailand if you're six two like me) that looked like he needed ironing. First he started talking about boxing and told me that in his day he was a contender (must of been atom weight) and asked me if I had ever boxed. I told him a little, but stopped cos it hurt. He then quickly moved onto the subject of GF and made the observation that she was very small, he then pointed out to me that I was very big (well spotted). I wondered where he was going with all this and I soon found out when he said ( and these are his exact words ) "I bet she's got a tight pussy," everybody laughted. I have to say that I was a little taken aback but this is Thailand so I pitched in and indicated with hand signals that this was the case, and everybody laughted again. At this point the bloody police turned up again and the laughing stopped. I moved away back to GF and the copper moved towards the men. I couldn't hear what was said and my Thai is rubbish so I can only guess but a little money changed hands, there was a bit of laughing and copper went on his way. Broadly what I expected would happen. 5 mins later daughter arrived and off we went.
The first 100 klick was fine, there was very little traffic and we made good time and then guess ruddy what? Stopped by M.I.B (I prefer muggers in brown).
The smiley, slightly portly gentlemugger suggested that his spotter (he had one this time) was unhappy with me hammering it down the outside lane at 140 kph with my arm hanging out the window, which was all true, he also informed me that the gratuity was going to be 200 baht. I looked at GF and she went immediately into dealing with filth mode. She expained that we had very little money because of the A.T.M problem and besides we only had a 500 note (good lyer GF) which she produced. I looked at her again and said in English "if you give him that we're buggered" she understood the situation and that I wanted to give him nothing and then told the copper that it's a flat NO unless you have change. He, by this time was eyeing a packet of Marlbro on the dashboard and then made the suggestion that a packet of bully would do, so I offered him a half eaten pack. No he wanted the full one, so that's what he got. he then saluted and sent us on our way. Lucky farang!!
Anoth 300 kms passed with no problems, we were doing well and I was enjoying the driving. Then guess what? Another Thai road pricing scheme at the same place as we were stopped the first time. A policeman approached us and I lowered the window, we reconised each other immediately, it was the same fellow as before and we both laughered. He asked GF where we had been and she replied Laos. He then made the observation that we hade brought a measurable percentage of the Laos terrafirma back with us, then came the subject of fags (cigarettes for our American members) and had we got any? yeah, we got plenty replied GF. She opened a carton and a few coppers gathered around like bar girls do when the ping pong balls come out. I think we lost 6 packs. Not too bad.
We said our goodbyes, he shook my hand and away we went.
We got back to Samnakthong on fumes, the gauge was very close to empty and the " I'm thirsty" light had been on quite a long time, but we made it.
2300 kilometers, robbed of 7 packs of snout and 250 baht, and light 1 number plate. (I pulled the plastic bits over the windows off before they fell off).
To sum up Laos
I think if you spend A little time there you would find alot more than I did. I basically went to get GFs visa, deliver a fridge and give GF a chance to show the village that she really did have a farang boyfriend and the rumours were all true, yes he's a handsome chap LOL. We're going again during songkran this time and I want to use the time to travel up country and try some of the things Laos is famous for. If it's any good I'll let you know.
More pics tomorrow, having probs with computer, right now I'm in the village internet laundrette (everything in Asia has two uses) and no access to pics.
Regards The Dogcatcher.

watterinja · 27-01-2009, 08:49 PM

Originally Posted by the dogcatcher

Firstly it was freezing cold, secondly it's a dump, thirdly I like my creature comforts and lastly it's illegal. Can you imagen some of the jealous thoughts going round the village when GF turns up with rich farang with new car, her wearing new clothes, and having money in her pocket. Now I don't know whether her family is liked round there but a call to the local filth out of jealousy or poverty ie the caller gets half the 5000$ bung that I would have to pay to get me out of the shit for sleeping with a Laos national is all I need. There are many stoties on the net. One fellow had been all over the world, live in the U.S. with his Laos GF and had the complete blessing of all the family. He went back to obtain correct paperwork for marriage and two days later, in came the door out came the $5000 and he was deported. The jealousy thing is big here where I live, when I first came to Samnakthong all the girls ever spoke about for 3 months is why I had chosen a Laos girl, what was wrong with Thai girls. still a bit goes on now especially after my house was started. We even had insults sprayed on the road outside, this was quickly sorted out by me befriending the local top cop, now I play golf with him every other Thursday. No probs.

Are you referring to Laos, or Thailand here?

I can understand the Thai jealousy over a Laos girl, not quite sure about what else you wrote?

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