And we thought it was hard last time...

Since we arrived in Laos, we've had two main projects to handle... 1) finding a house, and 2) finding a car.  We're got #1 handled now, of course, but we are still working on #2.  And goodness gracious, is it NOT a fun process.  I mean, back when we bought a car in the States we thought that was stressful and difficult because you never know who you can trust- are the used car salesmen trying to rip you off?  Is a private seller trying to hide something? You just don't know.  And everybody has an opinion as well- you're paying too much, you're buying too quickly- but, at least we found, most people were all talk, and no one was willing to come to bat for us!  So we ended up doing what we were comfortable with, and I drove that Impala with a smile on my face for a full 7 mos and we never had any problems with it, and we sold it for just a little less than we paid for it.

Now, we have this whole buying a used car thing under our belts, but, it's way different here in Lao.  Two issues complicate the whole deal.

The first is that there are a lot of cars in Lao that are brought in by non-profit organizations.  When they bring in these cars, they don't have to pay tax on importing them.  They are hence referred to as "tax-not-paid."  These cars can be sold, BUT, you cannot transfer the title of the car until the taxes are paid- so in essence, if you bought one of these cars you'd have it, but, technically, according to the paperwork, it wouldn't be yours.  Unless of course you wanted to pay the taxes...but, from what I have been told, the taxes amount to quite a large sum of money, and the whole process is quite tedious as well.  And you can imagine, selling a car later on that technically isn't yours isn't all that easy either- which is why most people shy away from tax-not-paid cars.   This then, brings down the number of cars available to buy drastically.

The second issue is converted cars.  Apparently there is big business in bringing in cars from Japan, Thailand or somewhere else where they right hand drive (driver is on the right in the car), and then convert these cars to left hand drive.  I have no idea what this process involves (more than just moving the steering wheel apparently), but have been told that if it's done poorly, the car will be completely worthless.  If it's done well and correctly, apparently it can work just fine.  But, there is no way to know if you're getting a good one or a bad one until it's too late.   This is a major bummer because this takes another HUGE chunk of available cars off the market.  Also, it stinks because my favorite pictures of any car that Joel has showed me were of a lovely Honda, that was clean and new and spacious and just lovely, and then he said, "Oh oops...this is a converted one."  :(    

The third thing that is an issue just for us/me is that I have never driven a stick before.  Well, I did once, but only for one evening, and I was only mildly good at it.  So we'd like to get an automatic, because it would be easier for me, but, there are 9 manuals to every automatic- and it seems that a lot of the autos are the converted ones. Sigh.

So, our search continues.  And searching, by the way, means driving around town, searching for cars that have for sale signs in the back window.  When you find one, you take pictures, get the number, and then try to call about it.  We've actually met with people to check out two cars, and taken one to the mechanic.  The mechanic told us that one needed a lot of work.  So we're still searching.  And we're considering trying to negotiate the price down on the one that needs work.

For now, Joel is riding around on my SIL's motorbike, and Beni and I are getting around only courtesy of my BIL/SIL and their car.  While Joel could continue in this manner for some time, Beni and I need our own transport sooner rather than later.  So now that we're just about moved into our house, we're definitely going to focus full steam on finding a car.  Wish us luck!