"Pardon me, do you have a bathroom?" I asked politely. The man lifted his hand three inches off the desktop and wiggled it, not bothering to glance in my direction.

"A bathroom," I repeated, annoyed.

This time he pointed at the front door, layered with curious locals and leading to nothing but the street. They wouldn't let me into the courtyard behind the station and turned deaf ears to my repeated pleas. I sat.

At last, the voice in the back room ceased shouting into a moldy phone and the superintendent appeared in the doorway to bark orders, confiscate a pack of Jay's cigarettes, and disappear. An underling handed each of us twenty dollar fines for driving a motorbike without registration.

"How," I asked, "can we both have been driving when we only have one bike?"

He shrugged.

"But," I needled, "you have the registration in your hand." I was annoyed about the bathroom.

He scribbled a few words across a sheet of paper. I looked them up. "No pay," they said, "stay put."

We paid.