I hate bureaucratic nonsense!

I know I used to live in Hong Kong, I know I have travelled extensively in South East Asia, but I don't understand how they can have such long convoluted and bureaucratic processes. Everything we need to do requires someone to produce a written pass - it is a letter that is given from one person in one office to another - probably next door. And even then it does not necessarily mean that it works. So here we sit, in Galle harbour, not able to leave the harbour because someone had to write "a letter". Have they not heard about emails or the telephone. Rant over. We are supposed to be leaving at 6 tomorrow morning, and the plan is to ropes away and go, but I can guarantee that we will get stopped by a patrol boat as we leave - because the driver didn't get a flipping letter.