“You’re our guest. We take care of you.”

That was one of the first things we heard when we crossed the Mekong River into Laos. After we were sent on our way by the people from the hostel we stayed in in Thailand the night before, we were met with friendly and smiling faces in Laos just across the river. One guy in particular seemed to be the one in charge of our big group of foreigners that just got off the boat.  He was super friendly, told us to “chillax” because we were on vacation, and even apologized on behalf of Laos people for the scams that they pull on tourists. Little did we know, he was just setting us up for his master plan of taking our money in the end.

After giving us a quick run through of what the slow boat will be like and some advice about what to do when we arrive at our destination for the night, he also informed us that outside the border cities of Laos and Thailand, the Thai baht is not widely accepted. After he had gained our trust, he offered to help us by taking our passports and the money we wanted to exchange to the bank and promised to return it back to us before we set off.  Now that I think back, it seemed so naïve of us to trust this guy from a travel agency whom we’ve only known for less than an hour. But hindsight’s 20/20. So I guess you have guessed what happened. We got our passports back alright, but were shortchanged about $30. When you look at it in dollars, it’s not a lot. But it’s the fact that the guy told us the exchange rate, said there’s 1% commission for him, but in reality gave himself basically a 10% commission.  Again, it’s not the money that we lost that bothered us, and things could have turned out a lot worse, but it definitely left a very bad taste in our mouths. It’s unfortunate because that was the first thing we experienced when we got into Laos, and it’s made us very suspicious, apprehensive and bitter of this country when we haven’t even really experienced any of it. But we’ll consider it a lesson learnt. And if any of you ever come here or this region, try not to deal with agents or agencies as much as you can, especially when it comes to parting with you money and passport. And be wary of the extra nice ones.

Before coming here, all that I read about Laos was how friendly and laid-back the people are here. We were told to bring our smiles as that’s all we would be greeted with. Well, smiles we did get, but it’s sad that I now suspect what other intentions lurk behind those smiles because of this one incident. I hope this suspicion wears off soon though, and that my initial thoughts are proved wrong.

Pakbeng, the village that we’re staying at tonight is right by the river where our boat is docked for the night. The 2007 edition of the guide book we have said that there isn’t any electricity here. But I guess things have changed since then and all the restaurants and guesthouses that dot the main street flash and flicker at you as you walk by. You can definitely see and feel a major change in poverty level here compared  to anywhere we’ve been in Thailand. This was immediately evident when, as soon as we stopped off the boat, there were bunches of kids running up to us asking us if they could have our Pringles chips which we were carrying in plastic bags. My first instinct was to say no for some reason, maybe because I was still feeling uber protective of our things (even after our 6 hour boat ride).  But when we ventured into the village later, we saw the same group of kids and gave them the Pringles, hoping that they would at least share with each other.

Tomorrow, we’re setting off on our boat again to continue our 6 hour journey to Luang Prabang. I’ve read a lot of really great things about this place as being one of the nicest cities you’ll see in South East Asia. So, I’m still trying to keep optimistic, but Kevin’s patience is being tested a little more every day.