Blind Faith

Yeah, what could go wrong? I'm sure that 'Lao Experience Travel' will handle all my needs. The guy is at least 21 years old and when I went in there this morning, he was counting different stacks of money, looking a bit confused and worse for wear on this fine morning. He assures me that my passport will be back right on schedule, with hours to spare before I get on the all night bus to Vientiane on Monday evening.

You have to give up your passport when you apply for a visa and they airmail it off to the consulate in Vientiane where they process the information and the money and then send your passport back to you. It allegedly arrives back here at 4:30 Monday, (don't worry, there's never a problem) and then I'll take a tuk tuk to the bus station to catch my ride.

To use my visa card for the airline ticket, I rode on the back of a motorcycle driven by his younger assistant (slight whiff of alcohol at 8am), no helmets, what could happen?, to the main office of the agency, where the two young women were watching some adventure TV show while they dealt with my credit card. Occassionally they'd look over at the set when the music changed, so as not to miss any plot twists. It wasn't quite the way it's done in the US, but like I say, Blind Faith, and all will be well?

There's some different Mojo going on during this stage of the trip, and rather than the relaxed, internal meditation of the Chiang Mai chapter, I feel like I'm keeping some balls in the air and hoping for the best. I'm making some decisions on the fly, and it feels like the adventure quotient is beginning to ratchet up. And that's fine, I'm not too nervous, though I prefer not to think about some of the stuff that could happen if say the passport doesn't make it back in time, or I can't figure out what to do from the Hanoi airport. Ah screw it, it'll all be fine, right?
Of course it will... (insert 'whistling past the graveyard music')