Bribes at the Border

Welcome to Cambodia, welcome to chaos!
After a long, sweaty, and sooty six-hour train ride (third class ticket only 48B/C$1.60 each), we arrived at the Thai border town of Aranya Prathet. A short tuk-tuk drive away and we were at the border. Welcome to chaos! To say the Thai/Cambodia border crossing at Aranya Prathet/Poipet is overwhelming is an understatement. There are people everywhere! And most of them are clamouring for a piece of you. First, there are the bus touts who want to make sure they get you on their overpriced rundown bus. Then there are the 'visa application specialists' who want to assist you in completing your visa application ... for a small fee, of course. (Fortunately, I printed these off and completed them in advance in Bangkok -- not because I knew about the visa application specialists, but because I am anal. Yay for being anal!)

And, finally, there are the passport control guys themselves. We were forewarned about these guys. Despite there being a sign -- in English -- directly over his window stating that the cost of a Cambodian visa is US$20, the passport control guy insisted the fee was 1000B (about US$30). The Book's advice about what to do in a situation like this is to remain calm but be firm. So we played the stupid tourist.

Passport Officer: "Visa 1000B"
Us: "Oh." (pretending to look confused) "But the sign says US$20."
Passport Officer: "Visa 1000B"
Us: (still pretending to look confused) "But the sign, it says US$20."
Passport Officer: (completely deadpan) "Old sign."

We went back and forth like this for a bit. Then we tried, "But we don't have any Baht left." To which he helpfully replied that there was an exchange counter around the corner. We had also been warned that the exchange rates would be horrendous, so we definitely weren't going there. We replied that this (two US$20 bills) was all we had. They paused a bit at that. Then changed tactics. Now he wanted our US$40 and 100B (about C$3) each. We could live with that but when we opened our wallet we realized that we had only a 500B note. I really didn't think he would give us change, but there must be some sort of 'honour among thieves' because he didn't even pause when he saw our 500B note and gave us the proper change without any problem.

So we had our visa. Next we had to get it validated. So we went to another window, filled in another form, and got our stamp. This part of the process was relatively painless, and by this point we were only being dogged by the bus touts.

Despite our best efforts, however, we still got caught in their trap. We had, all along the way, been ignoring all the bus touts. But just before we got our visa, a young Cambodian man came up to us. He explained that he worked with the Cambodian Tourist Authority (sounds good but we later found out that it's actually the name of a tour company) and he advised us to ignore all the bus touts. Instead, there was a free shuttle that would take us to the bus station where the prices would all be listed and we could make our own choice. Then he pointed us in the direction of the visa counter and left us. He left us! This is how he caught us; touts never leave you alone. What a brilliant tactic! After we got our visa, he came back and showed us the way to the 'free' shuttle (we should have known ... nothing is ever free). He showed up again after we got our visas validated and pointed out the 'free' shuttle to the bus station. Of course, when we got to the bus station all the buses were the overpriced rundown buses that we had been trying to avoid. Who even knows if this was actually the right bus station? We were well-caught. But we didn't go down without a fight. All the bus tickets were US$10 (compared to the US$4 the Book listed), but we managed to get ours down to 300B (about US$7.50). A small victory certainly, but still a victory.

For more photos, see our Cambodia photo album.