No Conversation is Private
Guess who’s back? Back again. Jamie’s back. Tell a friend. I took notes on this story a couple of months ago and then life got a bit crazy. Anyways, enough of the boring stuff.
Dad noticed that I left a story out of the last blog and said “what the heck?” so I told him I’d put it here after asking (yet again) if he wanted to write it himself. Anyways, before he did the job in Ecuador (last post), he had to go check out a few embassies for potential work. He calls this his “trip around the world.” On June 5th, 1999, he flew from SAT to Miami, Miami to Johannesburg, South Africa where he explored a gold mine that was located in an amusement park, flew to Thailand the next day (where he would later work) for a few days, and Thailand to Laos which would be his next embassy. When he arrived at the airport by himself, he handed the customs officer his passport and the officer waved his finger “no” because my dad didn’t have a visa. He was stuck at the airport for 45 minutes to an hour before someone from the embassy had to get him. After looking at the embassy there, he flew from Laos to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Japan, Japan to Chicago, and Chicago back to San Antonio.
Here’s a map of what that actually looks like. Just looking at this makes me tired.
In August-September of 1999, it was time for dad to start the job in Vientiane, Laos which is a country surrounded by Vietnam. They flew from the US to Tokyo, to Thailand, and then arrived in Laos. Since Laos is a communist country, they were unable to make very many plans ahead of time and had to be briefed on all things to expect being an American in a communist place. When he talked to my mom on the phone, he had to be aware that someone was most likely listening to their conversations and said that sometimes when he called home, he could hear another click after my mom had picked up. They were also told that they could be followed as well. He didn’t have any interesting stories about this because after all, he’s Jack Bradley, NOT Jack Ryan.
There were some pretty big Buddhist monasteries in the area so dad and Abel rented a scooter one Sunday. As my dad was telling this story, he did the “Flintstones move” because as two pretty big men, it took a running start to get the scooter to go. They hired 12 local guys, a man from China was in charge, and they were paid in “Kip”, which is the local currency. After work, they would go to a bar across the street from their hotel and drink “Beerlao". Dad specifically remembers the dim sum cart in the hotel restaurant so they ate there quite a bit. He mentioned that they weren’t able to explore much so they spent a lot of time around their hotel for the most part.
They were only allowed to stay in Laos for 30 days at a time, so they had to go to Thailand for a few days. They spent a weekend in Chiang Mai where they visited places and some more beautiful Buddhist monasteries. When they returned to Laos, dad bought some Laotian hats that they still have in the house today, he got some tailored suits and a couple pairs of shoes made because they were so cheap. As I write this, I can kind of see why my dad has hoarding tendencies. I wouldn’t be able to get rid of any of this stuff. They were able to get the job done in 6-8 weeks so they were able to return to the US in no time. I, too, will return here in no time (hopefully).
