Don’t Lose An African Passport in South-East Asia
How I survived losing all my identification in Laos with no embassy nearby to help
Last year, midway through a nine-month world trip, I lost my passport, Smartphone, and wallet (money and bankcard included) in Laos — all at once. Before you freak out, no, I wasn’t mugged or attacked. I succeeded in fucking up on my own devices, accidentally losing a bag which had been entrusted to me by my travelling buddies; and in which they had also left their Smartphones and wallets.
Thanks to this royal fuck-up, we were all forced to cancel the rest of our trip, forfeiting our non-refundable tickets to India. Besides the very piercing sense of guilt, I wasn’t ready for the circus that was to ensue around the loss of my identity documents.
My travel buddies were incredibly forgiving, and spent two hours scouring the muddy Laotian countryside for the bag, and attempting to trace the location of the cellphones using GPS. When it became tragically obvious that our things were gone and gone for good and that the local authorities would not be much help, I shut down and descended into a full-scale panic attack.
My travel buddies (European citizens) said to me “Okay…calm down. It’s not the end of the world. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ll…
