I know they have machine guns, but they won't really shoot us, right?

Our border crossing, and the machine guns!!

 

"I'd read in an online forum that they had quite the racket going on charging all sorts of additional "fees" for exit stamps, a "health check", visas, and entry stamps.

The only real cost of the border crossing is $20 for the Cambodian visa. The rest is just bogus, but everyone is in on it from both sides of the border including the tour companies shuttling tourists across.

 

Many on the forums suggested fighting the corruption and trying to get through without paying the fees, by the several stories of people attempting, it sounded pretty difficult, and few actually ever accomplished it.

 

Sure the extra "fees" only amount to $10 but  the principle of the thing made me want to attempt it and Julie was kind enough to humor me.

 

The tour company we hired to drive us to the border offered to help travelers get visas for $30 each, enough for the bribes and some for themselves.

 

The tour company guy wasn't very happy that we were going to go across without his help and during the process said the bus would just leave us at the border if we took too long.

 

We arrived at the border and went to a little building on the Laos side for our exit stamps.  Julie waited to the side and I handed our passports through the window and sure enough they asked for $2 for each exit stamp. I said no and that I knew there were no fees for an exit stamp and asked them to please give us the stamps. They pushed the passports back at me and told me to move aside for other travelers. I refused and stood my ground. They slamed the window shut leaving the passports in front of them inside the window. 

 

More and more travelers and tour operators were lining up behind me so the border guards opened the window and again told me to pay the fees or move aside and pushed the passports back at me. At this point I put my elbow in the window to keep it open while pushing the passports back at them and boxing out the various tour operators trying to push their stacks of passports through the window with bribes inserted. 

 

This continued for several minutes, including an episode of me taking a picture of the guards to try further to persuade them to just give us the stamps. 

 

One of the guards started trying to negotiate with me by offering to give the stamps if I let some of the tour operators go through. Wary of possible trickery I still decided to give it a try since the stale mate we currently were in was going nowhere. After letting a couple tour operators put their passport stacks through I asked him to stamp my passports and again he said no, not without paying the fees. I reminded him that he promised to do it and said I wasn't going to move until he stamped them. He finally grudgingly stamped our passports and gave them back to us. This all took about 20 minutes.

 

I thought to myself, "Wow, all that, just for the Laos exit stamps. I can't even imagine how difficult the other things will be, especially the Cambodia visa."

 

As we walked across the border, on the left side of the road was the Cambodia Health Check station, just a tent with some tables and border guards.  All the other tourists were lined up at the health station. 

 

Basically the guards just swiped the tourists forehead with a thermometer and charged them $2 for it. Again, this is not anything official, just another scam! Haha. 

 

I told Julie to just ignore it and walk right by it all. Just then a guard in the middle of the road tried to direct us to the tent but we just kept walking, ignoring him while all the other tourists watched. He kept asking us to go and Julie said in a very kind, pleasant voice, as the diplomat she always is, " Oh, we don't need, it but thank you!" She flashed them this convincing smile, like what she said was really genuine because it was. haha

The guard looked shocked and didn't know what to do, so he just said thanks back, and we passed by him. 

 

As we were walking to the Cambodia visa station one of the visa guards called over to the health station guard we just passed. I'm not sure what was said but my guess is he was asking wether or not we paid. 

 

I figured the visa was going to be the hardest part, and I was right. 

 

There was one guard outside the booth directing people and several guards in the booth working on visas. We filled out paperwork and I stepped up to the window and handed them our passports with the paperwork and the money for visas. 

 

They asked for more money, I said no and that I knew the official visa price was $20 each and wouldn't be paying more. They tried to hand everything back through the window but I blocked it and so they dropped it on their desks inside their office, and told me to move aside. 

 

The window was wide so I couldn't block everyone else but I held my ground in the middle of the window and wouldn't budge. The guards were getting more and more upset that I wouldn't move or pay more money and eventually the main guard in the booth yelled at me that we wouldn't be crossing the border today, tore up our paperwork, and told me to go fill out more. I wasn't sure what would happen but thought I'd try the "take a picture" strategy. 

 

So I grabbed my camera and snapped a quick shot. The camera flash set off an uproar from the guards and other tourists. The guards were all yelling and it got a little crazy for a moment and other travelers were saying I would get arrested. 

 

As I was trying to find some info on my phone the main guard quickly reached through the window and grabbed my phone putting it in the top drawer of his desk.

 

They kept yelling to sit down and fill out forms again.  Julie convinced them we would sit down as it was getting heated, and I decided to sit down and let things cool off.  We filled forms out again and sat patiently for a bit. I then said I'd delete the picture and held up the camera to show them that I did. 

 

After a bit Julie very nicely asked the guard outside the booth if we could get the visas now and after a minute he asked me to follow him to a little table outside the visa office. 

 

For a second I wasn't sure where he was taking me, perhaps out back to rough me up...haha.

 

 He asked me to show him that I had deleted the pictures, I did and he then tried to get me to pay more again, but I said no and he eventually asked for the passports, paperwork and visa money. I gave it to him and hoped he would really take care of it but thought he might just take everything and leave us hanging. He came back a couple minutes later with visas in the passports and we headed to the entry desk/gate to get the entry stamp. 

They asked for $2, I said no, they set the passports aside and were helping others for a couple minutes then stamped ours and we were in Cambodia. 
 

Standing your ground here is not for the faint hearted, and honestly with corruption that deeply ingrained, I understand why 99.99% of people just go along with it. Not just here, but in any place where corruption is that ingrained in the system.

 

 I am glad that I did it, but they started to get pretty hostile, and it could have gone south, with me ending up in Jail. 

 

What is the real answer to these types of problems?

 

Once across the border we waited a few hours with everyone else while the tour companies tried to get us all sorted and squeezed onto various buses. This part of world travel often seems so chaotic, hectic and unorganized. We finally ended up on a bus packed wall to wall, with a full aisle of people as well.

 

Welcome to Cambodia.

Main Initiate, Leave Laos

It was time to go..

I know you're thinking, "but you didn't do anything in Laos", but we did, we ate Laab. What I didn't tell you was that our first day there we took a tuk tuk around several parts of the city, and saw everything we needed to!

However, the true Laos experience came when we were leaving. We were picked up in an oversized Tuk Tuk crammed full of people. It was nice. You can't help but bond with someone whose so close that you can smell what type of soap they have been using or the lack there of... Rich, poor or famous, from certain places, there are only certain options available for travel.

Good bye wall stares,  hello adventure.

Leaving Laos, that was the main initiative today, along with entering
Cambodia. After living in the states my whole life where I can travel
freely to "whole new worlds" by driving to a new state, border crossing is new and
plainly just inconvenient, but an adventure I'd like to write about, and 

something I plan to grow more accustom to!!

We have done our travel time you guys. I have stood on buses with 3x
the fire marshals concern...., still no chickens like some friends
of ours experienced. We have done trains with children relieving their
bowels and bladders in the walk ways, while our neighbors chewed
politely on some gizzards.

I don't know what time it was..early morning late at night..but we should have been sleeping.

So, we bought an over night bus! You get a bed to sleep in like an
overnight train. In Laos I didn't mind it. The smells are different
and I don't mind them. I walked on to the bus and headed to my seat.
Curtis was outside making sure our bags were being put away properly.
I noticed the puff paint on the drivers seat..(insert picture) and
started to have memories of passed bus trips. "Please don't have a
toilet"... I spotted a small child..., " please small child.. Have the
ability to sleep through anything"..., I found my bed at the very back
of the bus thanking my lucky flip flops that there was no bathroom and
especially that it was not right by my bed!!! The small children were
far away and I climbed up the latter onto our mat.

To the right of me across the bus were our neighbors, smiles, and
baldies brother? I say this with a question because the bald guy in
front of them looked like his brother, but with less hair... I didn't
ask, so I will never know!!! but I observed them both in question for far too long!

To the left was another sleeper bus. I noticed the identical brand new
crisp and clean looking flower sheets on every bed. I started to
compare the two. Underneath me was a Teddy bear sheet? That looked
like something I had used as a superman cape, then rolled around
endlessly in our neighbors sand box with, and then carried something
like a hundred heavy wet frogs home in, where the frogs where then cooked and
my sheet was hung up over a chair to dry. (insert picture) ok well maybe
not my experience, but someone's.

I noticed a girls hair blowing in the wind, I could feel the cool
Arctic winds of good airconditioning just watching her through my window. I turned back to my own bus and watched the old women in front of us wipe her bangs off her forehead that had been plaster there by sweat.

I started to work on opening the vents. As the imagined arctic winds
began sputtering cool and warm winds from my vents..., I realized how
different out buses were.

Well, like we do, we made the best of it. We went to sleep and I prayed
for safety from the bugs as always.

Curtis Take: Not sure how smooth the ride was in the front of the bus but we were being tossed and bounced all over in the back. Julie kept launching in the air and landing on me while we tried to sleep. I kept wondering if the window would give way and I'd fly out onto the road. We slept on our sides/stomachs to try to keep stable and held a hand in between our faces and the window and wall so we didn't smash faces with all the bumping. Good times. 

Back to Julie.

A few hours into sleeping I
smelled oil. My nose twitched and I turned my head. I started
dreaming oil was dripping on my head so I covered my face up with a
blanket.

Then I felt it in my hair. I uncovered my face and opened my eyes
deciding I would fully wake up so I could fall asleep and dream
something different. That's when I felt the splashes of water on my face
again. The condensation from the aircon! No biggie, a few drops of
water, but those eventually, within minutes turned into a full spring and
then a lake on our bed!

CURTIS Take: The aircon was totally raining on us at this point. I went up front to tell the guys with the bus company what was happening. 

Back to Julie.

It was difficult for him to explain to them as we did not speak their language. These are the jokes that persisted.

"sounds like bake, there is a LLLake on our bed.", Curtis
" it is also like a vegetable, there is a LLeak", smiles

Those are some funny comments I liked from the night putting humor to
the situation where we could not communicate the problem. I forgot to
tell you that there was a half bed in length and width in between
smiles and our bed. It looked like a place to put extra bags, but it
was for the passenger who bought a bed and got jipped. We'll call him
Jimmy. Jimmy's propped up his feet on my bed by my feet and on baldies brothers bed by his feet all
night, until the leak, so his feet didn't hang off his own bed.

Well, they tried to stop the leaks by holding up some plastic bags to
them, like that was going to do anything. We pulled into a small bus stop for a bathroom break and we waited to find out the situation. Suddenly they were working on the engine, the bus would
not work either, and we all slept at that stop that night. 

There are two beds to every seat area. If you buy one a random stranger can buy the other, and you a very close experience with someone you don't know!! I found  a girl named Stephanie who bought one bed. She moved over and we became bunk mates, while Curtis had a camp fire with the
local bus diver men And watched packs of dogs fight and mate and do
what dogs do at night in foreign countries.

It reminds me of apocalyptic movies where few humans come in and out
of rubble and ferocious dogs who survived have become dingoish.

CURTIS Take: I got off the bus at the bus stop and realized that we were either stuck riding in the soaked bed for another 10 hours or we needed to find another option. I quickly started running around, checking all the other buses at the station to see if any were going our way and had room but to no avail. Then I found out we could catch another bus the following evening and just stay the night in a hostel nearby and was walking back to discuss it with Julie when I noticed several guys working on our buses engine. Julie was taken care of in the last dry bed so I stayed up to try and help with the bus and figure out what was happening. After a few hours the bus still wouldn't start. It was the middle of the night, the bus station was empty and I had no idea what the plan was. The bus drivers were huddled around a little fire with the station security guards so I decided to go hang with them and try to find out the plan. After a good gnaw of charades I found out another bus was coming but wouldn't arrive until the morning sometime, several hours later. We sat listening to music, watching packs of dogs attack each other and just taking it easy. It was interesting to watch the slow steady evolution of the bus station from ghost town to sleepy village to bustling travel center in a matter of hours that morning.

Back to Julie.

The night passed pretty quickly and I hear the screaming of a small
child below me. "I know small child, I know!"

The adventure continued and wouldn't be worth writing home about
without the trifecta. But alas the bus with the meat throwing and the broken
seat arrived, which was followed up by our next "VIP" bus going MIA-- due
to another breakdown... So we played sardines in the back of a large
Tuk Tuk again!!!!

Meat bus: A bus arrived after our long night. We all lined up, and waited to enter. A guy came with a trash barrel and someone with in the bus started sweeping out bones and meat. It filled the barrel, and so they brought another. At last we were let in. Did I mentioned we were first in line. We got in to pick a good seat to sleep on. We picked a seat, that we eventually found out was broken, but only after it was too late to pick another. the food I have bought from a local place I realized has a whole chewed through the wrapper by mice or rats. I went to return it, and they did without a second thought, but while I was gone the bus tried to leave with out me! I made it though.

VIP's Gone MIA: A sweet French lady was completely lost after the second bus ride, not knowing where to go or what was happening with the VIP bus that was already an hour late. In broken English asked me for info. I tried to tell her in English but she couldn't understand. All my French
education left me hanging as my mind went blank search through dark cob wedded tunnels, but I continued to search for the words. 

Donde..., no, that is where in spanish!! 

Why am I studying Spanish when I need French!! Why in high-school Did I study French
when I needed Spanish?? Always in the wrong order!!

The Fragmented french was still there. So in broken
french I spoke to her. J'ne said pas!!! She spoke back in frennch

Mrs. Richert..., Mrs. Wozniki..., I understood every word, and answered
back in broken French!! Thank you for forcing me to speak French, to
conjugate, and for passing me. Thank you for endless songs about beef and swimming fish and
other things I always thought were irrelevant!!!  After this conversation and my ability to win little mermaid French trivia questions, I know now that all that singing was not in vain! And you'll be
happy to know.. I know that the little fish are swimming now and not
nauseous.

Petit peasant Nassau Nassau Nassau
 

From then on the french lady and I were friends, and for the next three days I was
having little chats with her in french.

We ferried to the island. Stayed for two days. 

We ate bad food, slept under a mosquito net, and then ate amazing food but at a bug ridden restaurant! U win some u lose some.

(Insert picture)

We left and took a bus to the border and it begins...

The crossing from Laos to Cambodia was an interesting experience.