So this is officially the worst day of my travels ever ever!! :-((( And this contains strong language!!
This morning I was due to be picked up at 8.30 ish to be taken by large bus to the local bus station to pick up a minibus to Luang Prabang. I got up super early cause I didn’t want to miss the pick-up and wanted to get some more money out as well. So bright and early I’m already to go. The bus arrives and I go over to it, the guy checking tickets and loading bags takes my daypack off me and then my big pack and tells me to go and sit down. I could see my bags, so sat down and had a very brief chat with a couple of the others on the bus before more people were getting on and I went to get my daypack! Well that was enough time for the thieving robbing bastard to rob me of both my iphone and some cash!! When I realised I didn’t have the phone, stupidly in my naivety and trusting way I initially thought I must have left the phone at the guesthouse and I panicked that I was going to be heading off to Luang Prabang without it so started double and triple checking my bags before trying to explain to the driver and the bag guy that I had forgot something, they knew I hadn’t forgot it cause they had it!! If I had been a little less trusting I might have clicked to the situation and confronted them (not that I suppose that would have got me anywhere) they just kept saying ‘speak no English!!’ yeah, but I bet they can now use an iphone without any problems! Bastards! I hadn’t even clicked at this point that my bag was open!! :-(
So in a bit of a panic I decide to get off the bus and go back to the guesthouse, as I’m doing so I’m trying to retrace that morning’s footsteps and recall if there really was the possibility of having left it somewhere. I got to the GH but of course no joy there. I did wonder at one point if it might have fallen out of my bag somehow when the guy threw it on the bus so went back to the place that I had booked the ticket and the woman there called the guy on the bus who said nothing had been found (!!!!)(only in his pocket!!) it was at this point that I realised I had lost the phone and needed to file a police report so dumping my main bag at the ticket office I headed off to a very lazy, quiet police station.
Once I had relayed the story to the junior chap he got his boss along who then started quizzing me as to why I was only now reporting it, at which point I had to tell them once again it had just happened about an hour ago not a day ago!! Not looking good is it? They then decide to drive me around town looking for the said bus and baggage guy! We saw the bus, I pointed it out and they said would I recognise the guy again I said yes but for some reason they decided not to pursue it any further, instead they decided to call the guy in question who said he doesn’t have my iphone!! I think they were friends or related or something, otherwise how would he have his number?!
Well that is just brilliant; it’s almost as good as the British system! All you have to do is say you didn’t do it and therefore you didn’t and get away with literally murder! Pissed off?? Me?? No surely not!!
It was clear this was going no further so we headed back to the police station for them to give me a police report for the insurance (which turns out will only pay £85 after excess!!!). At this point I honestly really didn’t know how it could have happened, still stupidly trusting, I thought perhaps it had slipped out of my bag and someone had picked it up and kept it.
After getting the police report I headed back to the ticket office to try and get the next bus (anything) out of this godforsaken town to find it wasn’t for another hour and would cost me even more all over again! It was when I went into my purse to get the money for the ticket that I realised the thieving bastard had stolen a load of money I had taken out of the cash point that very morning! Thing is it’s not like I’m not careful, I am. I took out a load of money that morning and put it in three different places, I didn’t and don’t leave things lying around and I’m always careful about making sure my bag is done up and I always have everything, which is made more annoying when you see other tourists not being careful at all, wandering around with money in a loose pocket brandishing massive great cameras, iphones and laptops etc! I’m not seeing the fairness or justice here! Stupidly I was just a little too trusting in a vile, disgusting thieving town and have suffered the consequences!
So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ve been robbed and have to now try and get out of this dump again!
I’m on the 12 oclock bus and it’s going to take 7 hours to get there.
Poor Dean, bless him, sent me a text just as I was leaving the police station saying he couldn’t sleep so I replied telling him what had happened and he was a real star about it all, texting me and calling me, keeping me going! ;-) Thank you Dean. xx
I still have my old phone with a local sim card but the thing is I’m not getting text from anyone else but Dean and I have no idea why. People can receive text from me but I can’t get any from them, bloody annoying bloody country!
Anyway, I arrived in Luang Prabang at 7pm instead of 3pm when I was due to arrive if I hadn’t been robbed and missed my bus, and I’m feeling really pissed off and totally fed up, and totally totally done! I feel so stupid that it’s happened and I bet the thieving bastard has already sold it and dining out on the money whereas I now have no regular contact with home for the next 4 and a half weeks and when I do get home will have to fork out £400 on a new iphone!!!
Apart from anything else it was really handy for up to date currency exchange, although I’ve just seen a post on the Lonely Planet forum from someone saying she had her iphone stolen in a taxi in Hanoi while she was trying to sort out the money! Why does everyone want what you have?!
I’ve never had any problem like this before anywhere, on holiday, backpacking, home nothing. So is it maybe the law of averages that at some time somewhere you’re going to get robbed. A bit like getting a speeding ticket – when you think of all the driving you do, unless you strictly stick to the speed limit, at some point you’re going to get a ticket! Mmmm maybe! Still not good though.
So enough now, I am still seething, in case you hadn’t realised (!) but hopefully I wont let it spoil my holiday here and all I can do is hope that in this country where they favour Buddism, that Karma really does actually exist and that by some act of nature and stroke of fortune the phone blows up in his hand!!!! :-))
Wrong? Probably! But I’ve just been robbed!!
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