Lucky visitor praises Lao honesty



An Australian visitor left her handbag containing money, credit cards and a passport in a tuk-tuk as she hurried to get off to buy some Lao skirts at the Morning Market last week.

It might have been a disaster for her, but thanks to an honest tuk-tuk driver she retrieved her handbag, and now has a very good impression of Lao honesty.

At about 9:30 Friday morning I was working in my office. The visiting Australian rushed up to me and said: “I'm in trouble and need some help. What should I do? I left my bag in a tuk-tuk. I got off and suddenly realised I had forgotten my bag,” she said.

She shouted out “wait, wait!”, but the tuk-tuk driver could not hear her as he drove away.

The visitor ran from the Morning Market to ask for help from a Lao speaker. She and I hurried to the place where she had got on the tuk-tuk, in the Sihom area.

As we approached the tuk-tuk station, the driver saw us, ran to the tuk-tuk – and raised the bag in the air!

The driver, who didn't want to give us his name, said he had found the bag when he returned to the tuk-tuk station. “I saw the bag. I wondered how I could contact the owner to give it back to her. I talked to the other tuk-tuk drivers about how we might reach her.”

“I was very happy when I saw you coming to collect it,” the driver said.

“She was lucky to get it back. If I picked up passengers on the way and I hadn't seen her bag, it might have been lost.”

The Australian visitor realises how lucky she is. “My day started badly but it all worked out happily in the end,” she said. “The driver kept asking me to check my bag to see that he hadn't taken anything.”

“I was happy to give him some kip as a reward.”

“This is my first visit to Laos . I've been in Vientiane for about three months,” she said. She will return to Australia next month, she said, after “a wonderful experience here – including today's adventure”.

It is a story that ended well, but it is a dramatic reminder that tourists need to watch their belongings in Vientiane – as they do in any city. Not everyone is as honest as our tuk-tuk driver.

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