A Sad Humiliation on Entering Laos
Laos
December 23rd, 2007
By Dan Murdoch

“I love Gabor. He didn’t send us what we asked for. But he did send us what we need.”
Tony, on the package of parts we received from Hungary.

A MORE ignominious entrance to a country would be difficult to imagine.
Our three Trabbis, pride of our lives, towed across the border in convoy by a single tuk tuk.
Shameful.
One little motorbike tugging along all our cars and worldly possessions.
Passers-by pointed and laughed, officials stared, motorists gawped and swerved. Trabant Trek hits Laos.

We’d hoped to cross from China on Wednesday (December 19th), but the cars took a few extra days to reach the border. So we relaxed in a town about 50km away, Meng La.
We needed a few hundred quid to pay the shipping company, and, although Carlos had sorted out the European money, none of the ATMs in town would accept the American’s cards. They had to take a four-hour bus ride to the nearest city to withdraw the cash.
OJ broke a pen in protest.

That afternoon I went to check out a basketball court I had seen the following evening. There were a couple of guys playing and a load of seven or eight-year-old girls in school uniform. It was about 4pm so I guessed they were on their way back from school, and I joined in. I was getting a lot of funny looks, which I expected, being a pasty, sweaty white man, but after ten minutes a woman came out.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Well, I'm on my way to Laos.”
“But what are you doing here?”
“Just passing through, I’ve driven here from Germany actually, we’re trying to get to Cambodia.”
“No, no. What are you doing here? This is a school. This is a PE lesson.”
I’d inadvertently wandered into a playground and started shooting hoops during a class. Oops. The lady was the school’s English teacher who had been summoned to sort me out.
I wonder what would have happened if a pot-bellied Chinaman had turned up at an English girls school and joined a basketball lesson.
He would probably be arrested.
But they were okay about it and I ended up playing a proper, hour long game of full court with the PE teachers, complete with scoreboard, ref’, floodlights and refreshment table. Exhausting.

The next day (Friday) the Americans returned from their ATM mission and Edmund, our guide, text to say the last car was at the border.
We headed down to Mo Hoa but they couldn’t get Fez off the truck before the crossing closed, so we were stuck another day.
We paid Edmund, our guide, who has been pretty awesome throughout our stay in China, sorting out all the paperwork, officialdom and shipping.
We are so late that the poor chap wont make it home (a five day bus and train journey) to be with his family for Christmas. He’s a devout Christian, and we all feel terrible about it.
Carlos found out about his distinctly un-Chinese name though. Apparently he’d once worked at a hotel, and the manager told him he could pick his uniform. Each one had a name stitched on and he chose one with Edmund.
I think all people deserve a similar opportunity at birth- take the parents out of the equation.

Saturday, December 22nd, we finally made it out. More than three weeks after the expiry of the Trabbi’s customs papers, just a day before the end of our own visas, six weeks behind the original schedule, and three weeks behind the revised Bishkek timetable.
Three days till Christmas.
And none of the cars work.
We’ve crossed mountains and deserts in these little cars. We’ve come so far, more than 20,000km through 19 countries, and the cars are badly damaged. But much is superficial or cosmetic- the doors don’t close properly, none of them lock, and when they do you can’t open them. The paintwork is a horrible mess, and there are various battle scars from collisions. Yesterday Carlos smashed Fez’s passenger window, which is ok, because before that it wouldn’t open- fine in freezing Siberia, but a problem in sunny Laos. None of the cars have seatbelts- all of them have been removed to use as tow cables at some point. Ziggy can only indicate left, and doesn’t have brake lights. Fez doesn’t even have a passenger seat.
All these things we can, and have, been dealing with. The cars are rubbish, we know that, they’ve been lived in for five months, they’re trashed.
But what’s going on under the bonnet, I have less idea about. None of them work, that’s clear enough, and we are relying on the parts that Gabor, our Hungarian mechanic sent, being able to sort the problem.

In a rare moment of group co-ordination, Lovey, who had gone to Bangkok to collect the parts, managed to meet us at the Laos border with the package. Our tuk tuk had dropped us off just before the crossing, but luckily it was downhill into Laos, so we released the handbrakes and freewheeled into the country, stopping outside a restaurant to compare notes.
What an arrival.

I was up for having the cars towed all the way south to Vang Vien, a traveller’s town where we hoped to spend Christmas. That way we could relax for a few days, fix the cars and enjoy the festivities with some other Westerners. I was very afraid that we might get the cars going and begin the drive, only to break down in the middle of nowhere and spend Christmas by the side of the road.
But the others were confident we could fix the cars here, so, on the side of the road, 100m from the border with China, we removed all three engines, and began rebuilding them. It turned out we hadn’t requested the correct parts for the job. But luckily Gabor had sent us them.
TP: “I love Gabor. He didn’t send us what we asked for. But he did send us what we need.”
Everyone got burned in the blistering heat, but loved it after the cold of the last few months.
By nightfall we had Fez and Ziggy back together, but all the cars had flat batteries. We tried to push start them, to no effect. I managed to find someone with leads to give us a jump start, but Fez only ran for a few minutes, making a terrible racket and sounding distinctly unwell, before the engine just died.
Tired and getting ratty, we turned in at what may have been a house of ill repute.

So this morning we plan to get the cars going and begin the drive south. Luang Prabang is about 300km away, Vang Vien another hundred. The chance of making it to Vang Vien for Christmas seems pretty slim from here- we don’t even know what the problem is with Fez or Ziggy. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
Luang Prabang is a possibility, but it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and pretty dull.
But it’d be better then the side of the road.

UPDATE, 3.30PM: This morning I found a garage to charge all the batteries. We are doing them in shifts. Just brought the first one back and stuck it in Fez. The little car works. We asked Tony to try it first and he raced away. He then kindly asked Lovey to have a drive of our baby Trabbi. Neither Carlos or I have been allowed a go yet, but I'm sure it’ll be smashing.
I'm resting my sunburn in a shady restaurant, and watching the Americans removing the roof from Dante. I can’t see exactly what’s going on, but when I returned from the mechanics they were drinking Beer Laos and excitedly told me they are going to make Dante into a convertible. Now they are on the roof with various tools.
It doesn’t rain in Laos does it?

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