Project Phongsali 2011: Minor police corruption causes minor delay but we’re soon back on the road.

Our truck gets "booted" by the police in Luang Prabang, an act of extortion rather than traffic enforcement. An officer tried to collect a fine greater than his monthly salary! We knew better than to claim that the boot was keeping us from life-saving tasks!

Week One

Day Four Continued

While we were in the Luang Prabang morning market, a police officer spotted our truck parked beside the road and immediately applied a “boot” to a front wheel, immobilizing it. (There went our early start to Oudomxai!)

Yai had no trouble finding the officer who had applied the boot. The cop was standing in nearby shade, awaiting our return, eager to explain the various hoops we needed to jump through before he would remove the device and restoring our mobility. (Actually, there was but one hoop; we needed to pay someone a lot of money).

The cop offered to stay right there, near our truck, with the required key until we returned from the office that collected fines. Apparently, on this day, that singular boot was his sole responsibility.

Foolishly, we wasted time contesting our detention, pointing out that there was no indication that the real estate under our truck was a prohibited zone: no sign, no painted curb, no nothing. We appealed to logic, to the officer’s sense of fairness, to his professional pride.

The cop blew off our protest with the assertion, “Everyone here knows that you can’t park in that spot on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It’s not marked ‘no-parking’ because parking is permitted on some days.”

Foolishly, we chose to waste even more time. Why? We must have thought that if the cop learned that we were out-of-towners he would sheepishly concur that, a couple of guys from Vientiane couldn’t be expected to know all the unwritten rules of Luang Prabang. We must have thought that, realizing his mistake, the cop would apologize, unlock the boot, and wish us a hale and hearty farewell. Perhaps that’s what we were thinking. On the other hand, maybe our brains were fried.

The officer shrugged off our pleas, pointed to the distant police station, and returned to his comfortable place in the shade.

I realize now that we were destined to be booted regardless of where we parked, and that what marked us for fleecing were the prominent words on our truck: “Landmine and Bomb Removal.” Our proud English-language decal had informed Officer Boot that behind our truck was a non-governmental organization and that behind that organization, whatever the organization might be, was somebody’s money.

I didn’t go to the station with Yai, figuring that a Lao guy alone had a better chance of negotiating payment than a Lao guy accompanied by a falang and the falang’s wallet.

At the station, the designated collector told Yai that it would cost 250,000 kip to have the boot removed. (About $32. A sum far greater than an officer’s monthly salary).

Yai knew better than to proclaim our importance, to explain the good deeds that we perform on behalf of the Lao people, to describe how we risk our lives for others. He reckoned that embellishing our stature would only convince the cops that they had bagged a well-funded organization.

Instead, Yai proclaimed us a hand-to-mouth, bare-bones operation. “Come look at our truck! Come see our bald tires! We’ll be lucky if our brakes last until we get to Phongsali! And you think we’ve got 250,000 kip to give you?”

The cop offered to cut the fine in half: “Give us 125,000 kip and you’ll be on your way.”

Yai turned his pockets inside out, pleading that he had only 100,000 kip on him. The cop cleaned Yai out, said thanks, and sent him off with a chit to show the cop with the keys.