Cambodia – unofficially…

The police arranged for a day trip to the countryside yesterday. I knew were going to the border region, but I didn’t know I’d be going across the border in to Cambodia, unofficially.

We stopped after an hour or so to pick up the local police boss as our escort to the frontier (left the hotel at 6:30 am). A little while later, we come around a corner to a dusty flat (see picture of the road to the border) area with a small market in progress and new looking two lane concrete bridge over a river. On closer inspection, the bridge approach road wasn’t finished. This is the frontier with Cambodia (known in this region as Kampuchea). The bridge was built and paid for by the Viet Nam government, who will complete it later this month. However, the Kampuchean government is so poor, they’ve asked the Vietnamese to not only pay for the bridge, but to pay for 28 km of road on the other side to connect to the pan-Asian highway.

Since the bridge isn’t open for real, you need a barrier. Right? So, as I walked on to the bridge I found a small tree and some branches across it mid-span, with a couple of rows of barbed wire strung along on top. A token barrier. On either side of the river are dirt poor markets / villages, with a constant parade of small boats going back and forth. Not a terribly serious border. (see pictures)

Turns out, we’re going to cross the border, by boat. A sort of ferry it turns out. A sort of foot passenger ferry (motorbikes and bicycles welcome, along with livestock), and it’s standing only. Pictures of actual "frontier" are forbidden, so the boat photo was shot from the hip, literally, so I missed part of our "ferry".

So we scramble down the bank on the Viet Nam side, past the two VN border guards (unarmed) lounging in the shade, and down to the river bank. The ferry is a flat bottom wooden thing, about 5’ wide by 16’ long, with a drop ramp in front (it just runs up on the bank on arrival), powered by a small gas engine attached to an 8’ shaft with a small propeller on the end. 18 of us, and one bicycle got on this thing. No hand rails. No Ministry of Transport inspection decal. No personal flotation devices. No safety briefing. You stand still and hope for the best as the current grabs you and this tiny little old guy tries to get his boat engine going. As it lurched, I let out a rather loud “Holy shit!” Everyone laughed. I guess the emotion translated well in to Vietnamese. (see picture of our ferry)

Two minutes later I’m scrambling up the riverbank in Kampuchea. Our police boss escort went ahead a few steps to greet the border guards. All smiles, especially when they saw a large foreigner. No passport control. No declaration. No paperwork. In fact, when I asked for my passport to be stamped to show I’d been there, much confusion followed. Turns out there is not stamp here. I’d have to get on a motorbike with one of the border guards and go down the road a bit to another location. I passed on the offer.

So what do you do when you’re unofficially in a third world country, one with horrendous human rights problems? You pose with the border guards for lots of pictures, do lots of handshaking and smiling.

The market was dirty, incredibly poor, and carried an amazing array of cognac, knock-off watches, and cases of foreign beer.