The Kindness of Strangers

OK, we are back in Bangkok, surviving the heat and getting stuff done. Not much else to say, but I did want to share with you a nice, heartwarming story about our border crossing from Laos into Thailand.

We bought our tickets for our train ride from the Thai border to Bangkok in Vang Vieng. The ticket price included transportation from Vientiane to the border, and we were told to wait outside a certain restaurant at 4:00. No problem. 4:00 on the nose we were there, only to have a waiter from the restaurant tell us that the bus doesn't come until 5:30, and that we should wait across the street. We asked one more person to confirm because I thought that was cutting it close for a 7:00 train departure. But we got the same answer so we found some seats and sat around killing time and sweating.

At about 5:00, we see a man inquiring to a passing traveler as to whether she is going to Bangkok and waiting for transport. She said no, but luckily we overheard the conversation and showed our faces and told him we were. He said, "by train?" and we said, "yes". He said, "Let's go....I've been walking around looking and looking for you!". Yikes. So we piled into his comfortable air-conditioned minivan with a group of the friendliest Thais we have met heading out to catch the same train. They had been waiting and looking for us for 30 minutes. They were not concerned at all, and assured us we still had plenty of time. We thanked them profusely for not giving up and leaving us, and the driver said, "I cannot leave my people" or something to that effect.

This group consisted of a middle-aged man who lives in Washington D.C, Mr Song, and Bo, who we assumed is a business partner and 3 other ladies...they were all travelling on business from Bangkok. We chatted with Song the whole way to the border while he translated the conversation to Bo, who was clearly very interested in us and our travels.

At the border, the minivan left us, our new friends went to do some Duty free shopping and we put ourselves in the very slow moving and very long "Foreigner Passport" immigration line to depart Laos. It started to become a little disconcerting as to how slow the line was moving as we still had to find transportation across the bridge, go through Thailand immigration, and find transportation to the train station. As we are standing there, with about 10 people ahead of us to go, our friends come back from shopping and breeze through the "Thai Passport" line. Bo speaks rapidly to the immigration officer there, and then quickly waves us over to his line....they had made it OK for us to go through their line knowing we were pressed for time. (I don't think the surly immigration officer, however, appreciated the throngs of other falang that followed us into that line thinking it was open to all foreigners! I have a feeling they got turned back).

The kindness did not stop there. As we are getting our passports inspected and stamped, Bo comes over with two receipts for the Laos exit fee. He paid our way out of Laos! (So it was only 50 cents each, but the gesture and the time saved was so thoughtful). Then, we get ushered over by them again, as they have hired a minivan taxi to take them the rest of the way and the insist we pile in with them. And continue to refuse any money from us. So off we go into Thailand. Luckily the lines on the Thailand immigration were the same for everybody and not very long. Back in the minivan and off to the train terminal with 20 minutes to spare to sit down with our new friends and have a quick bite to eat. I honestly think we might not have made it had we been left to our own vices and ignorance about the transport.

We were blown away by their kindness, especially after we were the reason they were late in the first place! Thai hospitality and kindness at its best.

Bangkok is going well. We have been shopping and to the movies. The only movie playing in every single theatre is MI3, but we were craving a good ol cinema experience so we went. A bit on the loud side (volumes are frequently turned up way too lound in SE Asia....at least the speakers weren't crackling like they often are in the street), but an entertaining movie. Today we went to the HUGE weekend market...something like 10,000 vendors set up. We bought a cheap pair of binoculars and some socks. Dad, you would have absolutely hated this market. So many people, hot, and nothing but shopping. We didn't even enjoy it all that much, but we had to go check it out in pursuit of good bargains.

More shopping on the list, research, pages to be inserted into passports, airline tickets to pick up and a restocking of malaria meds. Fun stuff. Don't be hurt if we don't update you with all the fine details. The next post may very well come from Tanzania, Africa. However, if those rope swing pics ever come through, I promise to toss them up here.

Cheers!