I have enormously fond memories of the time that I spent in what was then a quiet and forgotten backwater of Indo-China; a small Asian country that had had more bombs dropped on it during the course of the Vietnam War than had been dropped on Europe and the U.K. during WWII.
As one of the very first Western visitors to be allowed to travel solo through Laos, I felt enormously privileged. Having initially been met by a ‘guide’ who accompanied me on the first part of my travels, I asked him why I was subsequently allowed to go where I wanted, when I wanted. The response was that they liked my smile and that nothing seemed to worry me. (Which just goes to show that a smile can hide so much.)
Exiting Laos was equally interesting. Although there appeared to be a number of Laotians standing close to the runway perimeter gate – presumably ready to board a flight – on the day that I was scheduled to depart Vientiane, I was the only person sitting in the departure lounge, hoping that the lack of seat allocations on the flight meant that I wouldn’t have to fight for a seat.
Not understanding the very few broadcast announcements that were made, and with no departure board to look at, I kept one eye on the runway for the arrival of the small, Air Lao plane that would take me to Bangkok, in neighbouring Thailand. Suddenly, the lounge doors opened and a tall, fair-haired man walked in.
Dressed in a very crumpled-looking cream-coloured linen suit, he was carrying under one arm what looked like a very small cricket bat wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag.
As the only other passenger in the waiting room, and a Westerner to boot, he walked over and said, “G’Day.”, as he sat down next to me. We chatted about where we were going and where we’d been. According to my new-found friend, he was an Australian public servant tasked with visiting Australian Embassies in eastern and communist-bloc countries to check on supplies of light bulbs, toilet paper, and other non-essential essentials, and who had stopped over briefly in Laos on his way back from Europe.
A small aircraft, engines throbbing, came into view from one of the side hangars and approached the apron in front of the terminal. As it ground to a halt, an announcement came over the broadcast system and guards armed with rifles moved into position.
“Follow me,” said my new friend. Picking up his garbage-bag-wrapped parcel, he pushed through the lounge doors onto the tarmac and strode towards the aircraft’s rear staircase. Ignoring, and pushing between, two armed sentries who attempted to bar his way and who, by sign language, attempted to make him – and me – go to the back of the queue behind the advancing Laotian passengers, he ran the last few yards to the aircraft’s boarding steps, rushed up them, and, moving towards the front of the small passenger compartment, plonked himself down in the port-side front seat, next to a window. I joined him in the next seat as the plane quickly filled up behind us.
A short while later, we took off. Heading east toward Bangkok. As the aircraft banked sharply to the left on its circular climb to altitude, my companion had a perfect view of the ground falling away beneath us. And of a part of the airfield hidden behind a screen of palms and dense foliage. And of the row of military fighter jets (to my apparently untrained eye looking remarkably like Russian Migs) parked next to a runway.
Quickly unwrapping the plastic garbage bag from the object that he’d been nursing – a very expensive-looking camera with a large and long telephoto lens – he began clicking furiously away. Only ceasing when the military part of the airfield was no longer in view.
During the short flight to Bangkok, I offered to give him a lift from the airport to the city in a limousine that I’d previously booked to meet me. He thanked me but explained that a car and driver from the Australian embassy would be meeting him.
For such a seemingly low-level public servant, one whose working day was apparently spent counting toilet-paper-rolls-and-light-bulbs, he appeared to lead an enormously exciting and well-travelled life.
—ENDS—
Categories: General
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