The hotel room she and Cavalier were in overlooked the river and mountains and may even have been romantic on most occasions but not this one. The warring couple sat on balcony chairs contemplating the lights of the town opposite and on the mountain. They both had books. Cavalier couldn’t concentrate. He mulled over how to watch Farquar’s gang, while attempting to appease Pin. After his initial fears about being noticed, Cavalier now thought that he would be seen as the hapless husband, which would help him avoid suspicion.

Pin was still in a volatile mood the next morning over breakfast. The low, black cloud, the mist floating over the mountains before it evaporated, the muddy brown Mekong and the heavy rain, all seemed to conspire in a pall of gloom. The break from this grey environment was the wonderful, phosphorescent green mountain foliage.

Using his mobile, Cavalier managed to take photos of Farquar’s gang, who again drank beer for breakfast or helped themselves to protein booster drinks.

Cavalier was intrigued most by the sole woman of the group. She had a lithe walk and leap—from boat to shore—of a cross between an athletic female shot-putter and a 100-metre sprinter.

Pin was irritated by Cavalier positioning her to allow the gang in the frame. His fussy directorial arrangement annoyed her, although he was thankful for the small mercy of her conversing with him.

His remark of, ‘Verbal intercourse is better than no intercourse at all,’ brought a reproachful look.

He saw the gang leave in the truck before the tour buses, and would like to have followed them rather than engage in a pointless, lopsided disagreement with his ex-wife.

13 UNEASILY UP THE MEKONG

13

UNEASILY UP THE MEKONG

There was the usual disorganised scramble and delay passing through customs and immigration into Laos. Cavalier had his false British passport, which he concealed from Pin, telling her he had dual British and Australian nationality, which was not a lie. Yet it was a deception. His real passports were in a safe in Chiang Mai.

Cavalier knew how to slip out of Thailand into Burma and had done so recently to avoid passport controls. Here he made a mental note of where to do it on the Mekong into Laos and China. He had always been challenged by avoiding border security, even around Australia. Cavalier once hired a light plane in Jakarta, which was flown by an Australian ex-Qantas pilot he met in a bar. It took him to West Irian, Ambon and then south over the Arafura Sea to Australia’s Northern Territory. Cavalier landed on an old military airstrip seventy kilometres from Darwin and this way entered his own country illegally.

‘The trick,’ he wrote in his diary in 1980, ‘was to land on a weekend when the coastal patrol did not leave its radar on.’

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