Stamp? What stamp?

When we started our travelling, more than 10 years ago, we had a map and paper and pencil. Now we have a kit bag full of gadget stuff. There is a go pro hero 3 attached to the front bar of the motorbike. This can be manually switched on/off as we ride along. Or from the pillion seat I can do the switching via our old android mobile phone connecting it to the wifi setting on the camera. When we go underwater the go pro is attached to our walking pole, the same one we use to fend off the snapping dogs. The go pro stores the photos/videos on a 16Gb micro sd, of which we have a few. We have an note 3 phone which automatically uploads the photos I take on my wristwatch gear via bluetooth. The Gear is specific to the Note 3 and runs a 15sec video, with automatic stop. There are lots of other things it does, when attached to the phone, including receiving email notifications, sending and receiving phone calls. Quite useful when we are riding and the helmets are on. The Note 3 android phone lives under the seat, recording our journey on mytracks, via gps location. We leave the French simcard in this phone. There is no shortage of wifi connections at cafes, motels and corner shops and we have mobile data if needed, mid route for Google maps navigation. We do have local maps and meet a chap from Slovakia who introduced us to maps.me, really good and doesnot need wifi after downloading maps of the current country. We also carry a galaxy tab 4, into which we insert the mlsim card of the current country, for emergency calls. The tab 4 doubles up as my sketch pad with various art apps. The bigger screen also is easier for writing and viewing photos. All photos are uploaded to a common site via cloud technology, when we are in a wifi zone. We have Skype to talk to family and friends, Facebook to keep in touch and this blog. Of course all these things need charging. We carry a battery backup in case all else fails and this is kept fully charged via the cigarette lighter/car charger plug under the seat in a little boot compartment. In this boot we carry a hip flask bottle of whisky ( medicinal and nightcap necessity), plus rags, one spanner to adust the auto clutch and one screwdriver. The USB cigarette lighter adapter has two ports so we can multicharge as we go along. We have Thai USB plugs for charging in the rooms. Fortunately most charging are USB one end and standard fitting the other end so two cables work on everything. We put these gadget things to good use everyday, but even more so when we got to the Thai/Laos border. A foreigner teacher, living in Thailand, who had recently been to Cambodia advised us to carry spare passport photocopies and at least three passport photographs. Riding up and down KhongChiam high street and signalling in sign language what we wanted, we found a shop that did both copies and photos. Yeah. Photocopies were easy. Passport photos were interesting. We were positioned in a dark non-reflective glass cubicle studio behind two photographic umbrella reflectors, against a bright blue or white sheet. We chose a white backdrop. Photos were taken on a compact camera, steadied on a tripod. B was a bit tall for the standard height so the tripod was lifted off the floor. The sd card was removed and inserted into a computer, and Adobe photo shop opened. The photographer proceed to crop, magic wand, cut, paste, blur, clone and blend. He didn't quite understand when I asked him to remove my scraggy neck and lipstick run lines. One hour later we had passport photos. Not exactly how we expected as it seemed to be mostly jackets with a small head on top. We accepted them anyway after all that effort. Having gathered all our papers/photos,etc in one new sturdy bubble envelope we set off for the border, waving goodbye to the mechanic and the happy town of KhongChiam. One hour later we parked at immigration and stood with bended knees in front of the low window. A nice smiling officer came out and looked at the bike and asked us for the stamp. What stamp? The stamp that gives us permission from the Thai owner to take the motorbike out of the country. As foreigners we don't own the bike, even though we paid for it, it is actually owned by the sister-in-law in our Thai extended family. Oh dear, we don't have the stamp. Even my best sad face didn't work. Hello again to KhongChiam for another night. Hierdie boere het n plan gemaak. (Translated= these South Africans made a plan). Using note 3, previously mentioned, we emailed said brother-in-law, married to Thai wife, who are no longer in Thailand but gone home to Wales. Please, a letter in thai with I D, to be scanned and emailed back to us. 7 hours time difference meant we had to wait till they woke up to get the message. This was duly done, thank you. Then back to photocopy shop. We then forwarded this email, which was in fact a photo, to the Thai shop owners email address, who then printed it out, x3, on their photographic paper. Thank you. Too late to go back to the border, so another night in KhongChiam. Overnight we re-assessed the passport photo situation and decided that they needed to be more head and less jacket. Back to photocopy shop. Closed. The pharmacist was very helpful, and after stocking up with antifungal, antibacterial , anti mosquito and anti-everything else lotions we were told about another photocopy shop. Also closed. The cafe next door knew about a studio in the video/computer shop, and we followed a young lad down a side street. While he played computer games we did the photo shoot thing again. This time blue background, big head, crop to collar bone level, x3. Good. Time to go to the border. En route, we passed a blond curly ponytail blowing under a helmet on a local bike and waved to a fellow foreigner. Johnny from Sweden was also on his way to the border to cross over, have a beer and renew his visa. He informed us that the Thai are sticklers for paperwork. This time we are super-prepared. A different immigration officer asks for the stamp. We grinningly produced the permission photoletter,printed as a photo . Mutter, mutter, he will speak to his boss, who says it's OK, but only if customs say it's OK. There are two sections to all border crossings, immigration and customs. We had passed the immigration test. We walked through the gate, leaving bike on the other side, to the customs window and handed in the permission photoletter. Clutching it delicately he then walked back to immigration where a brief discussion took place. Oh dear, what now. Smiles all round, we passed. So now we walked back and we're invited into the immigration room to be interviewed. Johnny was right behind us. Thank you digital world.