To Catch A Thief...

A few days ago in my sunday yoga class a lady visiting town from London mentioned to me how her laptop was stolen very shortly after arriving to Luang Prabang. She told me how she still had the adaptor and should someone come into the shop I'm working at asking for one that it probably was for her laptop. Well today something even better happened, the thieves walked in with the laptop. Considering there are no apple stores anywhere near by I had a good hunch that it was her macbookair. Better yet, when I opened it up it had her name on the welcome screen. The culprits were trying to sell an unusable laptop to me. Unusable because it was missing the power cord and also because it was locked and being Lao people, they don't have any knowledge on how easy it would be to unlock the computer by reformatting. But I digress, so back to the point. I went outside and grabbed a police officer from the bank next door. After trying to explain to him the story, he still didn't get it. Again, the joys of living in a communist country where people have no real ability to think for themselves because they were never taught this. Again, a digression.  The police officer needed proof so asked for the password. I couldn't track down the owner but then I had an idea. I knew the place she was staying at and called them up. I asked the manager there, another student of mine, to tell me and then the police officer her full name. The reason why is that the login screen had both of these names on if. This could prove that it was not these guys laptops because a third unknowing party would be giving evidence pertaining to the laptop in question. Unfortunately the police office still didn't understand this and asked again for the password. Eventually the manager from the estate where the lady was staying came in and had a report of stolen laptop to match up with the stolen laptop. But the police officer was too young and/or scared to do anything. Since the laptop had been reported to tourism police it was next decided to bring them into the mix. When they arrived they did not take to lightly to the criminals. The estate manager, crooks, and tourist police went off somewhere and that was the last I saw of if.  the laptop owner came by the shop later to thank me and she told me that she still had to deal with the police and they were holding the laptop overnight for some reason.  Sort of absurd as she has the password to login which no one else had, being used as further proof. But this Laos and nothing ever make sense. There is a lot of petty crime here and people say many reasons why. They say the people aren't paid enough, or they haven't gotten enough schooling, or they want more and more, or that they are just lazy and feel owed something, or that it's just part of the culture and so therefore it's ok.  Well none of these are suitable answers, and as a falang (westerner) living here I find it horrible and more so that the Lao people will justify constantly.  Again I digress... so let's end this story with a funny story.  After feeling all good for doing the right thing and helping someone out I later was driving the wrong way on a one way street and police tried to pull me over. I don't take the police here too serious as, well they are a joke and don't do police work but rather just accept bribes. So I waved at the two cops and kept driving.  Behind them were two more and these two looked more serious but I kept on driving and they started to follow. But they are Lao and so lazy and after about 20secs chasing me, they stopped. I chuckled and found it amusing that in the same day I could do a good deed and then outrun police.  all in a days work :)  (note to all, mainly my mom. I'm not bragging about running from the traffic police nor am I condoning it. And I'm not worried about getting deported for it. More so I just think it's a funny ending story.)

update 9-24
below is a picture of the two idiots whom i caught. The guy on the far right was a police offer who was too young or two scared to do anything.