Scoundrels and Scams: The Thai-Cambodian Border

There will be more pictures in the next post - the border wasn't really a stop and take pictures kind of a place.

It had been three days of solo travel through Bangkok, and it was time to move on.  I should’ve been to bed early, as I was catching the morning train to the Cambodia border, but it was the Euro’s!  As a result, when my alarm went off at 4:45am, I was looking for any excuse to stay another day in Thailand.  I looked at flight prices to Phnom Penh, finding them at a tempting $130 USD.  But if I was to break my budget after only three days, what could the rest of the trip have in store? 

            Reluctantly, I found myself at Bangkok’s Hua Lamphong train station catching the 5:55am to Aranyaprathet, a tiny Thai town close to the border.  Planning to catch up on sleep, I climbed into the old carriage of a train.  Inside, large open square windows were between two benches with minimal cushioning.  Baggage was crammed on overhead platforms, holding anything from shopping from the capital, to traveller’s bags or even baskets of groceries.  Once again, I was thanking myself for travelling light.  As I looked around the ancient and grime coated carriage, I wondered to myself how long had this train been running; since the Khmer Rouge ran Cambodia, or the King; since the Americans or the French in Vietnam?  The only certain thing was that it was old.  Creaking rotating fans blew a light breeze that would later be an illusory relief from the sunlight blasting in through the window.  As the train begin to rattle its way down the tracks, I dozed to the prattle of passengers in the carriage.

            Momentary interruptions in my sleep revealed parts of Bangkok I couldn’t have seen on my own two feet and later, the benches around me filling with passengers.  It wasn’t long before we were trundling down the tracks towards the border with sunlight blasting in through the window and expanses of rice paddies corralling the tracks as they crossed the country.  Sometimes, when I’m travelling, I feel like a lizard.  There were two reasons why this time: firstly, I was dirty and dishevelled with four days growth on my face, and secondly, a granola bar was all I had eaten and my body was entering a reduced state of lethargy that only a cold-blooded creature could relate to.  At least I knew we were getting close to the border as the six hour journey neared its end.

            Stepping off the train in Aranyaprathet, I knew I was still about 6 km from the Thai-Cambodian border – and I knew that people of scrupulous character were what waited for me there.  I hired a tuk-tuk – a motorcycle pulling a wooden carriage – to the border.  Inevitably, he took a turn that I could tell wasn’t towards the border.  Here we go, I thought.  He led me to a bare office on the side of the road with the words “Embassy of the Kingdom of Cambodia” emblazoned across the back wall.  Inside, nothing to indicate it was an embassy.  No uniforms, not even a computer.  A suave salesman handed me authentic visa application papers, and three foreigners at the adjacent desk were eating it up.  I thought that maybe this spot was charging the correct prices.  When I asked how much, he told me 1400 Thai Baht, or 40 USD (both of which are higher than the official 20-25 USD).  I got out of there quick and my driver took me to another, more official spot.  Inside, there were computers, lazy people shuffling about, pictures of the King and no one seemed to care I was there.  A disinterested official behind a glass window glanced up and told me $30 USD.  It seemed everyone was on the take.

            I had read that Khmer’s are very reluctant to show any negative emotions, preferring to smile their way through incendiary situations rather than lose face.  I slipped $25 USD into my passport as I handed it over and he opened it, looked at it, and processed my visa.  Just another guy trying to make $5 off a careless tourist; I couldn’t blame him.  Back in the tuk-tuk and covering the last few kilometres to the border, my driver tried to charge me an extra 100 baht because I didn’t buy the sham visa from his scamming friend.  I held my ground and gave him the agreed upon 80 baht. 

            Now, it was time to walk across the second border in my life – the first being the Malaysia – Brunei border.  The research I had done assured me it wouldn’t be as easy this time around. Aranyaprathet on the Thai side is full of people trying to sell inflated visas and sometimes outright fake visas to unsuspecting and unobservant tourists.  Poipet, on the Cambodian side, runs a different gamble; cheap and gaudy casinos have popped up to cater to Thai’s.  The casinos, unbelievably, are closer to Thailand than Cambodian immigration.  Outside, on the streets of Poipet, scam artists can’t sell visas, so instead a complicated taxi monopoly has developed and scoundrels try to funnel tourists into dramatically overpriced cabs departing to almost anywhere in the country.  After getting my departure stamp from Thailand, I walked out into the street heading towards Cambodia.  A chorus echoed after me; “you have visa,” “you need visa,” “where you going,” “where you from.”  They were all empty statements hoping to hook me into a conversation with the end result of my wallet being lighter rather than real questions.

As I waited in the shoddy immigration stand sandwiched between Cambodian casinos, it suddenly dawned on me; I hadn’t read about a “Cambodian Consulate” in Aranyaprathet.  Just where the hell was I when I handed over $25 for a “visa”?  Panicky, I waited in line suspecting my visa was a fake and I would be fined or turned around and stuck in a hellish purgatory between Thailand and Cambodia.  A hand over of my passport, a smile while my picture was taken and a stamp on my visa later, I was officially in Cambodia – it turned out my instincts were right: the lazy characters and disinterested uniforms were truly a government post and the out of the way office was legitimate.             

Next step for the day: find my way to Battambang, a place that no other foreigner seemed to be going to..