* * *
May 24, 2005
The immigration officer in Huay Xai held out his hand for thirty baht.
I started reaching for my pocket, then stopped. Why am I paying this guy? He must have read it on my face, because he turned a laminated card around so I could see it.
Office Hours 8am–6pm
Overtimeee Fee 15 baht 4pm–6pm
Overtime. Spelled with three e’s. We’d crossed the Mekong from Thailand an hour before — forty baht for a longtail across the border — got our arrival stamps, filled out the paperwork. Now the same man who’d just stamped us in wanted a surcharge for working the hours he was already standing there working. A racket, printed and laminated. I paid it. You have to admire the confidence.
Huay Xai is a one-street border town. We found a guesthouse within ten minutes and spent the evening on the porch with a German couple twelve months into their own trip, three weeks from going home. They had the look — loose, unhurried, a little sad about the calendar. We booked our boat through the guesthouse. Four thousand baht for the two of us: one day down the river to Na Lee, then a truck the rest of the way to Luang Namtha. Leave at eight, off the water by dark, in town that night. One long day, the owner said.
I figured a single day meant rough. I didn’t know it meant this.
This became a chapter in Born Without Brakes — release date to be announced.
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