Border

Day 1: Corruption in the border🤑 (25/03/19)

I had read that in the border between Lao and Cambodia there was some corruption, but I could not expect that this day would become one of my “go-to stories” to tell.

I was traveling with my friends Tanguy and Lisa, we had booked a minivan with a bunch of other people that would take us to the border and from there another van would pick us up to go to Siem Reap.

When we stopped at the border, one of the agents asked me for my passport and 40$ to process my visa on arrival. I knew for a fact that the real price was 30$ and they were just trying to scam tourists, but if you were persistent you could get away with the real price. It was not only about saving 10$, but a matter of principles of not letting them get away with these illegal actions.

I let the people of my bus know what they were trying to do and most of us rallied together in a peaceful protest. They attempted to close the office window but 3 of us put our arms through to avoid that.

I believe they were getting tired and were about to give in, when another bus packed with British people stopped by. This time the agent ask them from 50$, and they all paid🤦‍♂️. We tried to block the window so they could not get their passports before we got our stamps too, which resulted in an increased agitation of the border agents.

From that moment, everything escalated quickly. At some point, they attempted to stab my hand with a pen so I removed my hand from the office window.

Which lead to me calling them a Mafia😤. I don’t know what that word triggered, but their eyes went crazy, they all left the office, came to me, pushed me around and grabbed me. Then they address to the group of people of my bus -“Either you pay now! Or we out your leader in a dark room”. For a couple of seconds, I got all excited about being called the leader and I was willing to take one for the team, and have one more experience to tell. But soon I remembered the stories of people who enter one of these prisons and never leave.

We all decided to pay, but when it was my turn, the officer catapulted my passport back to my face -“you not pass! You bad people”. What?😮

Not knowing what to do I screamed to my group - “guys, they won’t let me pass, tell the bus driver to wait a bit for me”. The officers would not talk to me, so not know it what to do I sat down and started to read a book, to calm myself and show them I was not leaving.

Thirty minutes later, one of the agents came to me and told me my bus was going to leave, which meant I would lose way more than the 10$ they wanted to get from me, and that if I wanted to pass and get it I should “pull down my pants” and tell the other agents that “I was very sorry for all the troubles I had caused, that I am a horrible person, an awful tourist, and that I would behave properly and respect the laws of their country”…

After several hours fighting for our rights, I was exhausted, I swallowed my pride and agreed on their terms. The worst thing was to find out, they had lied to me once more. And after crossing the border, we all had to wait at least 2 more hours until our ride came to pick us up😒

P.S. The picture is not from the actual darkroom, but I have no pics from Cambodia

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