Cambodia Border Crossing

Those of you whoe been following this blog might remember my border-crossing from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan, together with my (at the time) travel-partner Len: wrong visa date, limited food supplies, camping in no-ones land between borders for 2 days. A little bit annoying, but it turned out to be OK.

It's been a long time since Tajikistan, and I'd been wondering what the next "border crossing gone wrong" would look like. Now I know. This time around, it's my new travel-partner Elmar and I, crossing from Laos into Cambodia (Voen Kham/Dom Kralor border). Total time spent at the border: a record-breaking 4 hours.

Laos Customs: With a 12pm arrival at Laos Customs, we find the whole border department enjoying their lunch-break. Everything's friendly & relaxed, we're even allowed to take some photographs. Lunch-break? No problem! The custom's officer gets up, takes our Carnet de Passages (=visa for the bike), goes to his office and a few minutes later comes back with the Carnet stamped out of Laos. I'm stunned... one of the quickest Custom's procedures I've seen so far (5 minutes ago, the customs officer was officially on lunch break!).

Laos Immigration: When entering Laos, one of the border officers apparently forgot an important stamp. A quick chat with the boss - no problem. After stamping us out of Laos, we get asked for a "stamp fee" (=bribe) of $1. We tell the officer 'stamping is part of your duty', he contemplates for a brief moment, but then agrees and lets us go.

Cambodia Customs & Immigration: This is where it gets a little messy. Immigration greets us with a friendly "Welcome to Cambodia", followed by "First you have to do Customs for your motorcycles". OK. No problem. Then the Customs officer on duty comes up: drunk, cross-eyed, just about able to walk, hand stretched out towards us (no "Hello" or "Welcome"), yelling "Figh lola!". (Translation into sober language: "Five Dollars!"). Bribe-time? Elmar and I look at each other, shaking our heads. No. Let's see where this leads! We follow Mr Customs to his office, fill out the paperwork, and wait for him to stamp our Carnet (bike paperwork). (Which he does, prior to asking for the bribe. A normal (corrupt) customs officer wouldn't even touch the stamp before he's got the cash in hand. But after all, this guy's drunk, right?)

• Mr Customs: "Figh lola, stamp fee".
• Us: Just stamp the Carnet. We'll discuss the $5 later.
• (Custom guy stamps the Carnet) "Figh lola"
• We'll pay the $5, but we'd like a receipt.
• No receipt. This law Cambodia.
• OK. Nice try for a bribe, but: No receipt = no $5.

Well - we've got what we need, and we've already got the Cambodian Visa. Next stop: Immigration.

• Immigration: "I can stamp you into Cambodia, but Mr Customs has a problem with your motorcycles. If I stamp you in, you can enter the country. But your motorcycles need to stay here."
• "That's our problem. Just stamp us in, please"
• (Immigration talks with Mr Customs) "No, I can't stamp you in. Customs wants to check your engine number & frame number with the Carnet."

Elmar and I know that this is bullshit. If anything, the engine/frame number needs to be checked before stamping the Carnet. So it's pretty obvious that the Customs guy is up to something. I'm usually quite together when it comes to border crossings, especially once I sniffed corruption. But for some strange reason (I'm blaming heat & dehydration), the Customs guy gets hold of my Carnet de Passage. And he's walking away from the motorcycles to his office. If he wants to read the engine number on the bike, he needs to walk towards the motorcycle... Not good.

But the guy's drunk. So whilst he's on his way back to his office, I'm trying to remind him that my motorcycle is standing right behind him, on the one and only road - and not behind his office. But obviously, he's not even remotely interested in reading the engine number. He's only interested in keeping my carnet. And that's worth €3000 to me, so to release the bond I paid for it in Germany upon my return there. I follow the guy back to his office. And once we get there, his behaviour changes from 'plain drunk' to 'sulky'. Body language just like a little child: No eye-contact with me, arms crossed in front of his stomach, head turned sideways staring at the floor in front of him.

So far, Mr Customs was wearing a white shirt. Now he puts on his Customs shirt, sits down behind his desk, hammers his fist on the desk, shouting "This law Cambodia". (Still no eye-contact with me). I'm trying to calm him down, and as I've lost literally ALL respect for this dude, point out the motorcycle to him again, trying to talk sense into the guy: You want to read the engine number - THERE you go! Nope - the guy won't move. No discussions. Not even about the $5 anymore! (Seriously, I am not that bothered about $5, I simply thought I'd try it on and at least steal a bit of time the guy has just gone SO sulky, he won't listen, he won't talk. We even try to communicate to him through his (sober & sane) Immigration collegue. To no success.

"Plan B", it seems. No Cambodia. Maybe back into Laos? Elmar goes back to Laos Immigration to see if we can get back into the country. In the meantime, I grab my mobile phone and call the German Embassy in Lao to see if they can help. And whilst I'm making that phone-call, I make sure that Mr Customs realizes that I'm writing down his officers' number (a good thing he put on his official uniform ;). He quickly takes off his uniform - too late.

To cut a long story short: Laos Immigration is more than happy to let us back into Laos. We tell the Cambodian side that we have 2 options: we either get the Carnet back NOW (and then go back to Laos), or: if we don't get the paperwork back, we will pitch a tent in front of their front garden, wait as long as necessary and THEN go back to Laos. Elmar and I hope that they understand that the result would be the same: no $5, and no Cambodia. But as you can probably imagine: it's hard to explain this to a drunken Customs officer. As for the German Embassy: Mr Customs has committed theft. And because of that, the Embassy is going to try sort things out with Cambodian Customs head office.

Whilst we're waiting for a call-back from the Embassy, we decide to take some pictures of Mr Customs and his flash Toyota HiLux (which is standing right next to the hammock he's now lying in). The result: A stone-throwing Mr Customs, who's desperately trying to catch Elmar and get hold of Elmar's camera. At times it's so ridiculous, Mr Customs is even hiding in his hut, so we can't take more photographs of him. By now, the whole thing has been going on for over 3 hours. We've already set our mind on camping in front of Mr Custom's hut, when suddenly his boss comes out of the big office on the other side of the road: he has a brief chat with the (sober) Immigration guy, who translates to us the unexpected: if we delete all the photographs we took at this border, we will get my Carnet back. And we can go into Cambodia. Finally. In front of the big boss's eyes, we delete all photographs, get the Carnet back and we're stamped into Cambodia. And as we're rolling our bikes into the country, the drunk customs guy is still sitting in front of his office, arms crossed in front of his stomach, head pointed downwards - still the same sulky body language as 3 hours ago.

Was it worth it for us? Certainly not just to save $5. But it was an interesting experience. And overall, I think it was the right thing to do: generally, I'm trying to avoid paying bribes as much as I can. By paying bribes, I'm not going to change the way things are in a country. Not paying bribes MIGHT change things on the long run. That said: as a traveller, I'm fortunate enough to have embassy-support in a case like this (stolen carnet). In a corrupt system, the local people usually don't have this kind of privilege, because the police is often just as corrupt as the person they're dealing with.

Although I'm not too serious about it, I still have a personal "no bribes record" (if there is such a thing). It's a bit of a game that keeps me entertained at times. But I'm fully aware that there will be a time when I'll have to pay a bribe: In fact, 1h into this Laos-Cambodia border crossing game, I was prepared to pay the $5. But the rather peculiar setting (sulky customs guy, stolen Carnet de Passage, him throwing stones, no discussions!) somewhat caused a stale mate situation. And the fact that he didn't even say "Hello" certainly didn't appeal to me either. If he had projected a little more authority (instead of just stealing an important document of mine), there wouldn't have been two ways about it.

Apart from the border crossing, we felt very welcome in Cambodia and went to see the "S21" concentration camp on Phnom Penh, and the world's biggest religious site, Angkor Wat, in Siem Reap. Here are some samples from the Cambodia Album on FlickR:

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Laos: Handicap International

Our last day in Vientiane turns out to be one of the most interesting ones: Elmar and I visit an exhibition from the ‘COPE’ charity – a really well-made and educational show about Laos’ heritage of unexploded ordinance and their devastating effects on the people. COPE work closely together with Handicap International and UXO Lao, and with a combined effort these 3 charities help to clear sites of landmines, educate the local population and run rehabilitation programmes to help mine victims.

As mentioned in the charity section on this website, I am fundraising for Handicap International with this journey. Making a donation is quick & easy – just follow the link and you’ll get taken to a secure server from a company “Just Giving”. 100% of your donation goes straight to Handicap International.
If you'd like to find out more about Handicap International's activity in Laos, click here.

From one of the ‘COPE’ workers, we get the phone number from Mr Phayabseng, a Prothesist & Orthotist working for Handicap International in Southern Laos, and on our way through Savannakhet we pay him a visit at the local Rehabilitation Centre. Seeing Mr Phayabseng’s workshop, it very quickly becomes clear that even a small amount of money goes a long way here:
The prothesis they produce are very basic, but nicely moulded and shaped individually for each patient, and very comfortable to wear. A lot of people come here to have their ‘wooden leg’ replaced for a moulded plastic prothesis.

(Little side note: considering that he’d lost one leg after stepping into a landmine dropped by the US, it was quite strange (or ‘funny’) to see one of the patients wearing a “Johnny Walker” advertising t-shirt, saying “Johnny Walker – Keep Walking”, covered by a camoulflage jacket with a "US Army" sticker. Very bizarre.)

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Laos Part 1: The North

A short 10-minute ferry-crossing over the mighty Mekong river takes us from Thailand into Laos. “Us” meaning: my new travel-partners Holger & Anja, and 2 fellow motorcyclists we met at the ferry-port: David and Mai from Thailand. The visa on arrival for Laos is quick & easy, and within a short time the five of us are en-route to Luang Namtha in Northern Laos.

This is my second visit to Laos, and I’ve been looking forward to coming back here ever since I left this beautiful country with its gorgeous landscapes, its welcoming people, and their relaxed way of life.

The reason why I’m raising funds for Handicap International with this trip has got to do with Laos’ disturbing past (and present): Laos is the most heavily-bombed country on earth, and the tremendous amount of unexploded ordinance (‘UXO’) and landmines are a major problem, particularly in the rural areas, where unexploded cluster ‘bomblets’ are hidden away in the farmland.

The official story: Between 1964 and 1973, in an attempt to destroy the communist Pathet Lao and cut Vietnamese supply lines, the US flew over 500,000 air strikes over Laos. Over 2 tons of bombs were dropped, around 80 million cluster bomblets in total. Between 15-30% of these tennis ball sized bomblets did not explode, leaving up to 24 million pieces of UXO.
The inofficial story is about a US / CIA clandestine involvement, or the ‘Secret War’ on Laos.
Officially, the two countries have never been at war with each other.

For about one week, our route takes us through remote & mountainous Northern Laos, which in large parts is populated by the Hmong minority, and I’ve got to say it was one of the most fantastic and refreshing places I visited during this trip:
Great mountain roads with lots of curves and hardly any traffic; streets lined with natural growth forest/jungle and rice-paddies, and very pittoresque villages with bamboo houses on stilts and thatched roofs. Food was very basic, but nevertheless delicious – most of the time it was noodle soup with egg & vegetables.

Without doubt the nicest part of northern Laos are the people: Whenever we pass through a village, people on the streets start to smile, shout a ‘Sabaidee’ (welcome) and wave their hands. And for the babies, who are too young to realize what is happening, their parents take their hands and wave them together. At times, I wished I was travelling by bicycle, just to soak up all this enthusiasm for even longer.

After this time in the distant mountain areas, the ‘golden city’ of Luang Prabang cames as a little ’shock to my system’ (and to my wallet). Due to its World Heritage status, Luang Prabang now attracts a huge amount of tourists of all ages/budgets. A lot of things have changed since I last came here 6 years ago: the evening market has become much bigger & commercialized, a lot of Heritage Hotels cater for high-end package tourism, and some trendy bars are selling local beer at prices similar to central Rome.

Still, I very much enjoyed Luang Prabang – particularly the relaxed evening atmosphere near the Mekong river, with a yummy baguette sandwich from the market (finally some good bread again) followed by my favourite Beer Lao.

My route takes me down to Van Vieng – a place I was never keen to visit, but hey… I thought I’d give it a try this time. And what a surreal place this is! Imagine a little bit of Ibiza (or Mallorca), place it in the middle of a laid-back, Buddhist country like Laos and you’ll have a rough idea about what Van Vieng is like. People usually come here for some ‘tubing’: going down the river for 4km in an inflated inner-tube. Sounds like fun, but unfortunately the river isn’t really flowing fast or anything. But it’s lined with lots of ‘beach bars’ playing party music. So the ‘tubing’ is mainly about getting from one bar to the next, getting drunk and (once drunk enough to forget about health & safety issues), crawling up a ladder & take a swing into the river from about 10m height.

For those who’re too hung-over to go tubing, the several restaurants offer the perfect hangover-remedy: Literally every 30 meters, there’s another restaurant playing a fine selection of TV-series: Friends, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Futurama… even Tom & Jerry. All from 8am till late night. And to make sure that there’s not too much human interaction happening at the tables, ALL the chairs and benches in ALL the restaurants point in the same direction: towards the TV.

Believe it or not: because of that stupid restaurant next to my hotel, I went to bed AND woke up to the opening music of ‘Friends’. How sad is this? I mean, there’s so many things to do & see in Laos… why would anyone want to go tubing, get drunk and watch TV all day?

I continue to Vientiane, Laos’ sleepy capital, to get my Visa for Cambodia, and to meet up with Holger & Anja again. In the morning of my birthday they surprise me with a yummy chocolate cake, and after a very relaxing day the three of us have dinner together in one of the Mekong river-side restaurants.
Here in Vientiane, I meet up with Elmar, another motorcyclist from Germany who’s part of a group of three. His travel-partners Joerg & Annette had a problem with their motorcycle and need to have it fixed in Bangkok. So Elmar and I team up for southern Laos. Anja and Holger have already continued their route one day before us – but we’ll probably all meet again in Cambodia or Bangkok.

Have a look through the galleries for a few more photographs from Laos: Full gallery - Slideshow

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Thailand (+ Photo Gallery)

I’ve been on the road for about 8 months now. Time for a break, stay in one place for a while, spend some time with my parents and swap my motorcycle for the diving-gear.
Thailand is just the right place for all that: With its well-developed tourist infrastructure, Thailand is easy to travel for my parents; there’s some really fantastic dive-sites; and I didn’t need to break the bank in order to find myself some reasonably-priced long-term accommodation.

The day after I got to Bangkok, I went back to the airport to get my bike out of cargo and through customs – an endeavour that lasted 7 hours followed by a 2-hour ride back to the guesthouse. Central Bangkok during rush-hour (and in hot weather) is not much fun, but at least the cars, tuk-tuks and busses were laning, had a working headlight and were using their indicators… something I hadn’t witnessed ever since I left Turkey.

Over Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I spent a good 4 weeks with my parents in & around Phuket and Phi Phi Island. And this family get-together over Christmas was really nice – after all, I still don’t know how much more time I’d spend on this journey and when I would see them again.

The 4 weeks passed by very quickly. On the relaxing side of things there were quite a few days at the beach, good food, cheap massages, some fun-dives followed by an advanced diving course & another few dives on a liveaboard in the Similan Islands. Plus a few good evenings & beers with Guido & Esther – an overlanding/motorcycling couple who’re on their way back to Switzerland. The less relaxing part & things that kept me entertained: recovery of a broken hard-drive (yes, the one with ALL my photos on it!), re-organizing & backing up photographs (for my parents to take back home), finishing my online tax-return (I’d like to meet the brainiac who programmed that part of the HMRC’s website), servicing the bike (my parents had brought some spare parts from Germany with them) and a Thai Visa-run to Malaysia.

I better explain the reason for this Thai Visa run: The initial plan was to continue into Malaysia, but a brief look at the weather charts for Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia made me change my travel route: in order to avoid the rainy season south of Thailand, I decided it’d be better to take a 5-7 week loop through Laos and Cambodia before getting ‘back on track’ into Malaysia and Indonesia around April. To cut a long story short: my ‘Allowance To Stay’ for Thailand was about to expire, and I had to leave the country (bike included) and get a new visa.

A 10-12h ride took me from Phuket to Malaysia, where I bumped into Sheen, Clement and Helen, a few fellow motorcyclist who’re also doing a world-trip. On the way back to Phuket, Sheen and I teamed up for a few days through the South-East of Thailand, before we went our own ways: Sheen into Northern Thailand, me back to my parents on Phuket. Once my parents had left Phuket, I headed up towards Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai), with short stop-overs in Khao Lak, Ranong and Kanchananburi. In Chiang Mai, I met Holger & Anja – another motorcycling couple on their world-trip, again on BMW F650s: from hear-say and personal acquaintances, in January 2009 there were at least 17 bikers passing through Thailand on their world trip, 9 of them on a F650 Dakar).

With a local BMW dealer nearby, Chiang Mai was the ideal place to do some more bike maintenance – although I got to say I’m not impressed with BMW Thailand: once I’d checked the valve clearances, I found out they don’t even have valve shims in stock. Big BMW Dealership, marble floor, large window shop-front, big bikes inside… but a standard(!) service-part the size of a coin – not available anywhere in Thailand. “45 working days from Germany”. I’m speechless. To cut a long story short: thanks to updated clearance specifications, the valves turned out to be just OK. So the last thing to do on the bike was: once again, new subframe-bolts. This time I had them enlarged & re-threaded, plus the right-hand pannier mount needed some welding done. All for a bargain-price of €10 at Joe’s Bike Team in Chiang Mai – highly recommended.

Holger, Anja and I spent quite some time together in Chiang Mai and ended up leaving for Laos on the same day (albeit on a different route). A scenic route past the Golden Triangle took me to Chiang Khong, where the three of us met up again to take the ferry over the Mekong into Laos.

For more details & images (including comments), have a look at my Thailand Album on FlickR.

The full-screen slideshow version can be found here. (To read the report during the slideshow, click 'Show Info' in the top right).

Here are more samples from the album:

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