STOPPED!!

We left the Okay Guesthouse a little late. Our hosts had organised a river ticket for a slightly overpriced ferry ticket to Chau Doc and the Socialist republic of Vietnam. The ferry turned out to be a 30 foot fibreglass boat with an inboard yanmar diesel engine, a Vietnamese Captain and a cool box half full of cokes and beer. We all climbed on board and Capt "Nguyen" started the engine. After offering us beer, he stuck his earphones in, tuned to radio Hanoi and we chugged down the river at a respectable 15knots.

The Mekong was brown and the banks green, but we stayed in the middle of the channel, and so views were not that spectacular. We passed a score of river freighters coming up from Vietnam. They were loaded to bursting point with goods or cargo. We were very excited. Vietnam would be a totally new country for us. After 2 hours of rather mundane brown water cruising, we reached the Cambodian border. Here the surprisingly impolite officials looked at us and stamped us out. But they refused to stamp Cisca’s passport saying that it was a little dog eared. The chief guard called a teenager and gave him the offending item along with strict instructions in Khymer. We had no idea what was going on. Soon the boy returned with the passport.

“Vietnam guard say you cannot enter Vietnam with this passport”
“But I have a visa” wailed Cisca.
“Cambodia has no problem with this passport, Vietnam has a problem” and with that the passport was returned to us, and we were left to unload our bags from the “ferry”
“you need to go to your Embassy and get a new passport” Said an official in a kindly manner.
“But there is no Dutch Embassy in Cambodia” She explained sadly.
The Cambodians all looked away and went quiet, Cisca was in a bind and they knew it.

“Can we get a bus back to Phnom Penh?” we asked.
“No bus” replied a boy
“Taxi?”
“Boat” He replied.

At that moment a luxury tour arrived in a slightly larger, but similar looking fibreglass piece of Junk.
“Can we come with you” Asked Cisca to one of the clients
“Are you in trouble?” Asked a kindly American.
“Well, yes, my dog ate my passport and the Vietnamese won’t let me in”
“Oh wow,”, the Americans all looked at her pityingly “that’s terrible, sure you can come, but we all paid $400 for this trip- you had better ask the tour leader”
“NO, not possible” said the Vietnamese tour leader. "My client all pay big money for this. You do not have money"

We did have $400 but were loathe to part with it for the same fibre glass junk heap of a boat where the only difference seemed to be styrofoam packaging.

The Cambodians had seen it all before and were not phased. They had a system for people who were refused entry, or rather refused the opportunity to try. An elderly man came up to us and asked us if we needed help. We said yes, and he offered his services. After some minor and not unpleasant negotiation, and we ended up bombing up the Mekong on a rather modest open boat. We flew along at 20knots in 20cm of water 20metres from the bank. He weaved in and out of sand bars known only to him, up to the Neak Luong Ferry. The view of the kompongs was clear and fascinating. Small village communities on stilts wizzed past along with the big steel river freighters. At Neak Luong (Pronounced "NOT LONG FERRY" in Khymer) we were smoothly transferred into an air conditioned Toyota Camry and relieved of $60. By teatime, and much to the amusement of our new found travel friend, Amy King, we were back in Phnom Penh. Cisca immediately looked online to see where she could get a new passport. Rather amusingly, the nearest consulate of Her Majesty the Queen of Orange Nassau and her loyal cabinet, was in the the glorious port city of.... wait for it......."Saigon". The very place that we were trying to get to.

She telephoned the Duty officer and found that unlike British
Missions where the DO is as lowly as possible, she was re-routed to HE the Ambassador himself. The man who tooks the (Dutch) Queen's felicitations to the court of Socialist Communist Hanoi. (my interpretation) His Excellency was kind and explanatory, but there was little that he could do until she got to Vietnam. Then, after a lot of holidays, she could apply for a new passport but this takes a standard 10days to 2 weeks to be issued.

“I would invite you for cup of tea, but you are not even in the country” He said apologetically.

Cisca thanked His Excellency profusely for his sage words, put the phone down and we had a long think about our options. Thailand was safe to re enter, they had already let us in once, and the Thai Authroities have probably seen passports in a much poorer conditions
"it got wet in samui mate" etc etc

But because of the large number of Dutch "clients" at Bangkok, the web and many expatriates said that it would take at least 3 weeks to get a passport issued. Saigon was a much better option. We could try and enter Vietnam by air, and hope that the air border guards were slightly more forgiving, but we ran the risk of being refused. And all because of some minor damage to the back cover. (Dogs cannot eat a whole dutch passport, its plastic!)

The only quick and guaranteed way of getting a new Dutch passport was to fly to Amsterdam, apply on Monday morning and get one in three days in return for a small fortune.

I looked at air prices to Amsterdam from Bangkok and Cisca looked at more websites of Embassies and wracked her brains. She was not overly happy and felt that she had let the side down. Combined with this, refusal at a border is a humiliating experience, no matter how experienced you are. I decided rather joyfully, that if Cisca went to Holland, I would not get under her feet. I would go to Japan for 4 days and see friends: Pat Hubbuk and Andy Cross. That way she could see her buddies and get lots done.

Eventually the sheer cost of a bounce to Holland made us gamble. Money after all is money! We decided that Air Vietnam might be more open minded than river vietnam. Of course we had to decide this at 1830hrs. Where could we find a ticket at this hour in Phnom Penh. Our known tuk tuk driver said he knew somewhere that closed at 1900hrs. We spluttered and huffed to the travel agency that stayed open. Here we were issued etickets to Saigon and relieved of another $125. VietNam airways does not do online booking. As soon as thatw as over we retired with Amy to the Foreign Correspondents Club and watched the Mekong yet again. I note that there was not a correspondent amongst any one in that place. We chatted about tomorrow, what would it bring? Would Cis be refused entry at Tahn Son Nhut? where would they send her or would she be allowed to fly to Amsterdam? Surely they would let her in to get to her Embassy, and the consulate was in Saigon... it all seemed so frightfully silly, and as usual in Asia: nothing was certain.

This morning, Tin, our tuktuk driver loaded our bags onto his chariot for what we hoped was the last time. We were late, but he just puttered across the whole of Phnom Penh to Pochentong Airfield. Airfields are famous in South East Asia, as they are always the last point of a city to be fought over. When the airfield goes, the regime caves. Pochentong was no different, the Khymer Rouge took it and then the Royalists packed it in. But this terminal gave none of its history away, it was small clean, modern, and generally very pleasant. Check in went quickly, the Cambodian border police stamped Cisca out without looking, and I bought some replacement sunglasses. Cisca bought a huge cup of western Coffee and we waited to be called. The terminal was new as was the Vietnam Airlines Airbus A320. We boarded, grabbed a paper, strapped ourselves in. The crew closed the doors, shouted at a Cambodian for using his phone, and taxied out. We turned at the end of the runway, sped up, zoomed past the RCAF antonovs and took off cleanly and climbed out over the houses lakes and fields that make us Cambodia's capital. Strangely, Phnom Penh looked utterly beautiful in the yellow-red light. A city of low buildings with moundlike knobs in the background. The Mekong appeared below us, dissapeared again and that was the flight over.

We started our descent into Than Son Nhut airfield in Saigon. I caught a glimpse of three runways and a huge field as we curled over and around the city. Storm clouds partially obscured the view but I could see that this place was massive. A supersized city. We lined up and closed with the strip for landing. I wondered what the thousands of American GI's thought when they landed here over their 10 year war. Did they see the endless houses, rain and fields? I was still lost in thought as we landed. We landed well, but then we bounced like a light car on a yugoslav motorway. The runway was made of concrete slabs with grass in between and the airbus took it badly. whup whup whup went the wheels as we slowed. It felt like noone had maintained the runway since the Americans left in 1975. We bumped to an eventual halt and taxied into the terminal. I quietly congradulated the pilots for dealing with such an awful surface so well. We passed many american hardened air shelters. Most were full of Vietnam war era Huey helicopters. Surely they could not be the same ones? They all looked to be in service or being maintained. Outside the HAS's were parked Antonov 32 transporters. The military presence here was certainly not small, but mainly transport orientated.

In contrast to the runway, the airterminal was ultra new, huge and deserted. I found it hard to believe that this was once the busiest airport in the world in terms of air movements. We walked through to immigration. This was a series of desks, but with brown uniformed Communist guards in each booth. Not one was smiling, this was a marked change from Cambodia or Thailand. Cisca went first and I could not look. I was so nervous as to what would happen now. The direction of our entire trip depended upon her reception.

I checked messages on my phone to avoid looking. Eventually I head the click clicking of stamps and she was in. I followed and we collected our bags. She sidled up to me and said excitely " he did not even look twice. He was not interested at all. Maybe he did not even see!" I was relieved beyond explanation. We were in Vietnam. This was the country that we had come to see. We were in, and in with the blessing of the border guard. Now all we needed was a new Dutch Passport.

We caught a cab into town, unloaded and had a think.

We now we have until Tuesday to kill, the Dutch Consulate only opens then. So we relax....until the next missive, our greetings from Viet Nam

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