I entered the Lao Airlines office. There were a number of employees inside including a young woman who was busily putting on her makeup. Others were on the telephone or shuffling papers. I sat in front of the makeup person who proceeded to ignore me. Eventually she achieved a satisfactory result. I handed her my confirmation and explained that I wanted to create a RT ticket with credit from the outbound segment. She did not seem to understand and a supervisor intervened. At this point the following ensued.

Me: Q: "Can you adjust the outbound portion of the booked RT to give me credit for the overcharge?"

She: A: "Yes, do you have the receipt portion of your ticket from BKK?" I searched all my pockets and did not find the BKK ticket. It obviously was still in the hotel room.

Q: "Can you look in the record and adjust based upon the ticket price that should be in the computer?"

A: "No that is not possible, we do not have that record." "You must go and get me the receipt."

Q: "How much is the fare from VTE-BKK?" "How much is half a RT?"

A: "$99 or $90". Now $90 was the expected answer for 1/2 a RT. It appeared that what I was asking was doable if only I had the receipt. It was now approaching 0915. The hotel is an 8-10 minute brisk stroll. I no longer am able to run-dr's orders.

Q: "What time do I need to leave for the airport to check-in?" "Do you take credit cards?"

A: "1000" "There is a 2.5% surcharge for Visa and a 3% surcharge for Mastercard." "We like US dollars as well."

I decided that by moving slightly faster than briskly, I could make it to the hotel and back. So off I went, retrieved the ticket receipt and boarding pass. I got back to Lao Airlines in 15 minutes. Sweat was now soaking my shirt and I realized that I might not be the best of seatmates on a small, cramped aircraft. But sometimes life deals one a bad hand or shall we say, a showerless body.

I handed the supervisor my documents, she looked at them and said:

"We cannot issue credit for this ticket, it was issued two weeks ago and we can issue credit only on tickets issued today"

Now, I have spent sufficient time in Asia to just smile, nod may head and hope that the tickets and voucher would soon be issued at $99 + 3%. They were finally done at about 0955. I departed with all 3 tickets and one voucher along with my Mastercard receipts.

The staff are probably still chuckling over making the American walk fast to the hotel so that they could spring the above-inscrutable answer.

Back at the hotel, there was obviously no time to shower. I grabbed the baggage and checked out. The conceirge got me a taxi to the airport quoting $6. During loading of the baggage, I overheard a conversation between him (he serves as bellman as well) and the driver. It was: "how much do I charge this guy" "$6". I understand just enough Lao to understand "6".

Check-in and the trip to LPQ comes next