Helmets II

When we arrive at the big police office at 11:30, they lock up my bike and tell us to come back tomorrow to pick it up. Ty and Hong tell them that we're going home tomorrow so we can't. We need it back today. The police say we can come back after lunch.

After a little lunch of noodle salad we head back to the police station. The cops come back at 2:00 after a nice nap. Hong and I are going to enter the office to talk to the guy. He tells us that we can't enter the office until we have on a Lao skirt.

Lao people usually wear Lao skirts whenever they go to an office or school or such place. I think it's great for them to wear traditional Lao skirts, but we're traveling! Do they expect every Lao girl to keep a Lao skirt in her back pocket just in case something like this happens and she needs to wear a skirt to enter an office?

Thankfully I had one along because I visited Ty's school and Lao people always wear Lao skirts to school. Ty also had one along for some random reason. So we went to the guesthouse to change into our appropriate clothing. I asked Ty and Hong what we would do if we didn't have any along. They said go buy one. They were kinda kidding. . . but I don't know what our other option would have been - borrow one from the neighbor lady would probably be OK too I guess.

We returned wearing our Lao skirts and sat down at a desk with two other little Lao kids who made some driving mistake. When we sat down, I saw my lady write:

 30,000 ($4) for not wearing my helmet

20,000 ($3) for not having my drivers license

200,000 ($24) for running away from the police

I almost threw a hissy fit right in the police office. How can I need to pay 200,000 for running away from the police?! I "ran away" from them 40 feet because I didn't know if I was the person who was making the mistake or not. My understanding from Ty was that if we waste time we do not waste money. If we waste money we do not waste time. Since we had already wasted over 5 hours - from 9:00 to 2:30 - I figured we wouldn't waste any money.

But then a nice old policeman came in and lectured us all about being good drivers and good people. So then I thought, maybe that's their plan - make us think we need to pay lots of money, but then make us feel bad for being bad people and breaking the rules and then tell us to be good people and obey the rules but then not pay any money.

But then he says, "Pay up." So I paid my 250,000 kip.