On the road to Cambodia

---

Our Saturday travel from Bangkok to Siem Reap consisted of a long and uneventful bus ride, followed by a taxi ride reminiscent of a high-speed car chase, punctuated in the middle by the typical efforts of Cambodian immigration officials to collect a bribe. It made for an interesting day

We left our Bangkok hotel around 7:00 am and took a 20-minute taxi ride to the Mochit Bus Terminal. It was a busy but easy-to-navigate place, and we had tickets in hand and were on the bus for its punctual departure at 8:00 am. There was one other Westerner on the bus, and the rest of the passengers appeared be local.

The bus stopped several times over the 4 ½ hour drive, sometimes to let passengers on and off, sometimes to let vendors come on to offer cold drinks or snacks, and once to let people use the bathrooms at an enormous gas station/truck stop. Jaz slept a good portion of the way, while I watched the passing scenery become more rural and did a bit of reading and writing.

Once we reached the final stop in Thailand, Aranyaprathet, our feet hardly hit the ground before a tuktuk driver was there to offer us a ride to the border, which we accepted. As he loaded our baggage in the tuktuk, I was once again horrified by how much we seemed to be schlepping along and wished I could explain to everyone who might be looking, “We’re going to be there a long time! And some of this stuff will be staying there when we leave!” (In case you’re curious, we have one large duffel bag, one medium-sized suitcase, two backpacks - the size kids use to carry books to school - a shoulder bag stuffed with English books and flashcards, and another shoulder bag. Worse than being so bulky, some of it is really freakin' heavy.)

The tuktuk driver took off and things began to get interesting. He pulled off the main road at what clearly was not the border, but some kind of “tourism” office, and we were greeted by a very friendly man welcoming us to Cambodia - but we were not yet in Cambodia. I requested again that we be taken to the border, but our tuktuk driver got out and seemed to melt away invisibly for a few minutes, while the Very Friendly Cambodian and his silent sidekick dragged our baggage out of the tuktuk and began explaining that this is where we would get our visa paperwork. “No, thank you. We need to go straight to the border,” I explained with a smile. We volleyed back and forth for several minutes while he waved forms at me, explaining in a Very Friendly Cambodian way that really, we were in the right place, and it would be much better to get all our paperwork done here. I continued to explain in Friendly-But-Insistent American style that we had no intention of going anywhere but to the border to do our paperwork there. He seemed to finally accept this, then brightened a bit and said, “OK - we go next door to the Cambodian Consulate!” He and the Silent Sidekick gathered up all the damn heavy luggage again and started dragging it across the driveway and into a larger, more official looking building that was actually labeled “Cambodian Consulate.” At this point, I knew I still wouldn’t give in, but I couldn’t resist letting them haul all our crap as punishment for persisting in this scam. As you might predict, they eventually had to drag it all back to the tuktuk when I wouldn’t fill out forms at the "Consulate" either, and our driver reappeared miraculously at this point to take us to the actual border. I’m sure they were disappointed not to collect whatever “fee:” they were planning to charge us for this “service.”

Next stop was the Thai immigration office, crowded with tourists of all varieties, shapes and sizes waiting in orderly lines to get stamped out of Thailand. We made it through there in ten minutes or so, then out the other side of the building into the No Man’s Land between Thailand and Cambodia, where the first hint of chaos began. There were overloaded trucks, people pulling huge wooden carts back and forth in both directions, tourists staggering along with their bags, a little bit of trash blowing, and the more offers of help from more Very Friendly Cambodians. “You need driver?” “No, thanks.” They were friendly, but not persistent, and I knew that Lori and Ponheary had arranged for a driver on the other side of the border. Lori had worked out a brilliant plan that involved us emailing her a photo of ourselves for her to give the driver, and I had promised to wear a red cap. It was great to know there was a driver waiting for us, rather than having to negotiate with the taxi mafia and risk overpaying for our ride from Poipet to Siem Reap.

At this point a young man approached us with a Very Friendly Cambodian smile, saying, “I see your picture! Driver has your picture!” Having been so well-coached by Lori to be suspicious, I wondered if he was legitimate, but decided there was no harm in following him as he beckoned us to the next stop on this leg of the adventure.

The next stop turned out to be a ramshackle building with an awning, under which card tables were set up and men in uniform offered visa forms. Who knew if they were the real thing, but it seemed more likely at this point, so we took the forms and filled them out. I fished out our passport-size photos and two twenty dollar bills, and we approached the immigration window.

A man in a very official-looking uniform approached us before we reached the window to announce, “Visa will cost 1000 baht.” Knowing that 1000 baht is more like $33, I smiled and replied that no, the visa fee is $20 US. (The US dollar is the de facto currency of Cambodia.) He gave me a look up and down, sucked some lunch scraps out of his teeth, and said again, “No, visa fee is 1000 baht. Thai border.” He gestured back in the general direction of Aranyaprathet.

This continued for quite some time, his insistence that the fee was 1000 baht and my smiling but firm insistence otherwise. Then he gave in a little and revised the fee to “Twenty dollar plus 100 baht.” His reasoning included everything from “Is different here, not same as at airport or Consulate” to “100 baht to make visa faster.” (He also continued to thoughtfully suck lunch scraps out of his teeth, and in an effort to throw me off my game, he did not display the Very Friendly Cambodian smile.) I continued to wave my twenty dollar bills, point out that the official sign above the immigration window said “Tourist Visa: $20 US” and shifted from Friendly-But-Insistent American to Slightly-Annoyed-But-Still-Smiling American, knowing that Pissed-Off-American would get us nowhere. Jaz interjected helpfully, pointing out the official price on the sign, and eventually the immigration official must have decided we weren’t worth the effort and handed our passports, forms and money through the window to his colleague, who said almost sheepishly, “Twenty dollar and 100 baht?” “No, just twenty dollars,” I answered. “Nice try, though!”

While waiting for our passports to be returned with the $20 visas, a couple with backpacks began the same process. At one point, the backpacker guy backtracked away from the window to where we sat and asked how much exactly we had paid for our visas. I was happy to tell him that they could successfully insist on the official fee and get away with it, which they did.

Passports back in hand a few minutes later (despite not paying an “expediting fee”), we then dragged the bags another few hundred feet to get stamped into the country. Along the way, our helpful border friend reappeared, this time with our photo in hand, so I felt more certain he was the real deal. He began explaining how he had been waiting for us since 8:00 in the morning so he could tell the driver when we arrived. I would guess that the sob story about the 6-hour wait was the first hint of a request for some compensation for his time, but all I said about it was, “Someone gave you the wrong information!”

We entered a small crowded room filled with hot, sweaty, scam-weary tourists waiting patiently to approach yet another official window to get their passports and visas inspected and have countless seals rubber-stamped all over them. No extra fees were requested, and a few minutes later we emerged from this building, having been officially allowed into the country!

Our helpful friend led us to a waiting tuktuk, who took us a quarter of a mile down the road to the waiting driver. (Parking away from the taxi mafia saved him some fees, I’m sure.) The car was a nice clean Toyota Camry, and our driver was a nice smiling man named Mr Baoy, who spoke not a word of English but drove like a bat out of hell.

The first hour, the road was straight and smooth and Mr Baoy let nothing stand in his way. We passed cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, small children playing on the roadside, cows, and water buffalo, the horn tapping out a rhythm almost as fast as the wheels were turning. And then things got really interesting when the road changed to something more like a “potential” road, something that would one day be a road, but wasn’t quite there yet. I guess you could call it road construction, since there were some pieces of heavy equipment along the way, and there were also dusty workers with scarves tied around their mouths working the rocks and piles of dirt with what appeared to be hand trowels and hatchets. There were places where the “road” was clearly only one lane wide for stretches at a time, but there was no one to direct traffic and decide whose turn it was to use the available lane. It looked at times like a slow-motion game of chicken as vehicles approached one another head-on to see who would back down first. In the straight stretches without oncoming traffic in the same lane, Mr Baoy picked enough speed and that Jaz and I came off our seats completely at least a couple of times.

What we were told would be a three-hour drive to Siem Reap took only 2 and a half hours, and I was glad to arrive at the Marina Villa Guesthouse a bit before 5:00. Ponheary greeted us with big hugs - we had spent the day with her last year when we were here - and after dragging our things to our room, we finally met Lori in person for the first time. Many emails have been exchanged leading up to this trip, and we cross paths with Lori on Facebook and on a travel message board that I frequent, and it was great to finally meet in person.

The best moment of the day was being led to our room, where a sign on the door greeted us: It was copy of the photo we had emailed, hand-lettered “Welcome Back to Funer Land!” Lori had clearly been reading the blog and/or looking at Jaz’s Facebook photos - this was a reference to a Khao San Road T-shirt we had seen. I’m already appreciating Lori’s sense of humor - and her eye for details: she had a cold Singha beer waiting for me, remembering from one of our Bangkok photos that I was drinking Singha at lunch one day.

It was also great to shower, to really unpack for the first time, and to begin to get a look at what will be “home” for the next few weeks. Despite the fact that Cambodia is poorer, dirtier, dustier, and more corrupt than Thailand, and the air has the pervasive smell of smoke from burning garbage, it feels like this is just where we want to be. There had been a tiny nagging doubt in my mind about whether we would arrive and ask ourselves what the hell we were doing back here, but we both felt a sense of joy and excitement. Inhaling a big lungful of smoky air, I felt sure I was truly in the right place - even though I was still almost completely unsure what we would be doing while we’re here. Just taking a leap of faith, that’s all.

(Photos to come later, so check back tomorrow!)

---

Comments

[Ju]

humor
Very funny description of the taxi ride. He drives like a "bat out of hell".. Very amusing over all.

[Steph and Alexis]

Thanks for the info!
Hi there, We're two backpackers on our way to Cambodia (Siem Reap) on Sunday (March 8th) and after hearing a plethora of Cambodia border horror stories, you're blog entry has not only given us some hope that we can manage it, but also provided us with some good information. Thanks a lot, Steph and Alexis