But I had a few "incidents" in Vientiane that made me one angry falang. The motorbike I bought for us (a new Chinese bike for 17,000 baht) didn't have license plates because the shop hadn't provided the invoice and customs clearing form yet. And I was driving on this sunny Sunday morning with the headlight on (in some European countries this is obligatory).For these two "offences" some cops lurking around wanted 75000 kip or 300 baht (7 USD). What can you do if they threaten to impound your means of transport?They took my passport with them (yes, they gave me a receipt) and told us we had to stop by the head of the village office the next morning.They wanted us to come right away, but my girlfriend managed to avoid that.

And yes, like in Thailand falang cannot own property in Laos.I tried to recall everything as best as I could, but wasn't really pleased with his behavior. He also wanted to know every detail about my girlfriend.At one point I was thinking maybe they wanted to know if I was a good partner, and then I thought they were suspecting her of being a working girl.They would come back later that day to have a chat with my girlfriend. Until the day before yesterday, when someone started bouncing on the door at 12.30 at night.It turned out to be some of the same people, accompanied by a dozen militiamen with rifles patrolling outside. They asked for passports and ID cards, lease contract, and the marriage papers. Asked questions about the neighbours too, people we didn't know.