The blog has obviously been suffering from blog neglect. It’s been a while since I even thought about writing in the blog and even when I did think of it, I was just not of a satisfactory mood for it Whilst the blog is intended to be an accurate diary of sorts, there are things that the blog audience should be spared. There have been happenings recently of a sad nature, that now make me partner-less. I’m sure that nobody really wants the details though, so I shall spare you.
The following entry was actually written some time ago, but fell by the wayside in the hectic mash of trips etc.
Poipet! Even the sound the name makes on your tongue as you utter it sounds horrible. The place in the flesh is truly worse. You arrive on the Thai side into a jumbled market area. In our case, we have eleven bicycles in boxes on the back of a ute that we have traveled from Bangkok in. Ben and I are taking the freshly serviced and packed bikes to Phnom Penh to use in the next tour that starts in a few days. Typical of most places in Asia, a tout is the first to approach us. He is offering to secure a Visa for us to enter Cambodia and will only charge us $30 USD. The standard price for a visa is actually $20, but according to our new friend, it takes a long time and you have to que for ages. I have been in this part of the world long enough to know that this is probably for lack of a better word, horse shit. So Ben and I grab a few ratty looking blokes pulling carts and load our boxed bikes onto them. We trundle off towards the border with the smell of dried fish hanging in the air.
If I describe the Thai side of the border as a jumbled market, then no man’s land is just in-describable. It is dusty and dirty and there are vehicles trying to swap sides of the road with no real provision or system to do so. The hand pulled carts are the main method by which to transport anything across the border and they range in size from one person pulling them to a huge one that is being pulled and pushed by about twenty people. Many of them are operated by children and weather children or adults, all are very skinny and dirty.
We arrive at the Cambodian Visa window, where there are a number of Khmer men with fat bellies hanging around the window. One of them informs me that the Visa cost is $20USD plus 1000 Baht ($40AUD) “processing fee”. I tell him that the sign above the window says $20USD and so that is all I’m going to pay. He then offers to discount the processing fee to 100 Baht. I tell him to piss off and he tells me that it will take a long time. I’m sure it will, but there is no way that this sloth is getting any money out of me. I push past tubby and hand our passports and money to the uniformed man behind the window. We then have a seat and the visas come to us within five minutes.
We march off towards where the bikes are parked on the trolleys only to find that customs are looking at them with some suspicion and a another look which I have seen before… it’s the “oh shit I’ve never seen this before, maybe I should get the boss” look. It’s not a great one, because the boss of any department is always harder to deal with and less of a push over than his subordinates. So we are told to have a seat and wait for “the chief”. The chief appears after some time with a different look, but one that I have also seen before. This is the “what the fuck have I been dragged out here for and what the fuck are these foreigners trying to pull over me?” Look. This is fairly quickly progressed to the “I’m going to ruin your day” look.
Our story is that we are transporting the bikes into Cambodia for other people to ride. The other people are not in the country yet, but are flying in shortly. This is pretty much the truth. We could elaborate more, but why bother? The more details, the harder they are going to find the comprehension of the story. The chief informs us, by talking to his interpreter, that we are bullshitting him (or words similar) and that we are actually taking the bikes to sell in Phnom Penh. After trying for a while to convince him that we would not dare to lie to him and that our story is 100% genuine, he decides that he would like to see one of the bicycles to see if they are in fact used. So we go to pull Ben’s bike out of the canvass case that it is packed into. Ben’s bike has recently been ridden from Thailand, through Laos, Tibet, to India and has more than a few marks to show for it. The chief is not going for that though, he tells us, to open one of the others. It occurs to me as I am cutting the tape on the top of the box, that our man Ae at the bike shop that services and packs the bikes, is obsessive about cleaning the bikes and that last time I got my bike back, it looked new. I am praying that he has not done such a good job on these, but alas, as the shiny blue bicycle hits daylight, all is lost. Ae has not only made it spotless, but has also managed to pack it in the original packing that bikes come in when they are new. It’s like a goddamn beacon! The chief is furious, and he now really does believe that we were bullshitting him. He tells us that we have to leave the bikes here. We can build two and ride them across the border, but the others have to stay until we can get some sort of proof from an embassy that the people that are using the bikes are in the country. This is of course an absurd demand, but we are not actually in the strongest of bargaining positions.
So we build one bike while we desperately try to contact our fix-it man in Cambodia. If anyone can save us, this man can. He tells us to sit tight and he will send someone. In the meantime, the customs blokes have been getting creative and have decided that they want to type up a five page document in Khmer then get Ben to sign it and then fingerprint him to each page. This is starting to get scary.
The fix-it guys arrive after about half an hour and the serious negotiations begin. For the most part of the next three hours, Ben and I have the pleasure of watching the chief bark orders and petrified staff. Upon visual assessment of the chief, we ascertain that he is a man of expensive tastes. He has a gold, diamond studded ring, accompanied by a similar bracelet. He sports a large gut which is topped by a loose flabby neck, supporting a bulbous head with greedy looking eyes. These eyes are partly hidden behind jewel encrusted glasses. We can guess what this man has been up to. We are a mere distraction. He must milk a lot out of his job. You don’t dress like this on a public servant’s salary. Ben dubs the chief and his team, the “The Fat Boy Brigade”. Quite fitting really. They are an exclusive but far reaching club, with members all over Cambodia, sitting on street corners on arm-chairs under umbrellas, in bars of questionable repute, shooting past in cars that are worth more than 500 ordinary Cambodian’s annual salaries. The Fat Boy Brigade! They are milking this country and anyone trying to get ahead, or even those that aren’t.
These fat bludgers are surrounded by the Casinos of the Poipet no-mans land. Golf carts with names like “Golden Paradise Casino” painted on the side, wait eagerly to snap up cashed up cosmetically altered gambling patrons from places like Phnom Penh or Bangkok. These giant structures sit surrounded by rubbish covered, dirty, dried fish smelling filth and in clear view of the wiry cart boys that slave away for a few dollars a day. There is no doubt that of the money that we pay to get our stock transported , these boys see hardly any of it,. I’m sure the fat boy brigade have seen to that.
Our fix-it guys have won! We have to pay a “$50 import tax”, but we can take our bikes. The only other thing is that to save face, they have to compile another six documents that have to be translated into written English and then signed and fingerprinted again. Ben is seriously concerned about all this fingerprinting stuff and the preparation of the documents takes hours, with the assistance of about eight staff all having their say as to how it should be done.
So we pick up our boxes, pile them onto some more carts. When we get into Cambodia, the vehicle that was supposed to be waiting for us has got sick of waiting and has presumably taken another fare. We eventually manage to get onto a bus that we share with some very tired looking back-packers. They have apparently been waiting for ages for the “VIP Bus” that they paid for. We take up half the bus and the back-packers are very understanding, while they have to cram in with bikes between them.
The road from Poipet to Siem Reap, is possibly the worst in South East Asia. This road is the main overland link between Bangkok and Phnom Penh and hence would appear to be a crucial trade route, but it is still unsurfaced. This is quite strange when you consider that all other major roads in Cambodia are now surfaced and some of them very well maintained, So why is this road so horrible? In the wet season, there are times when it can take a whole day to traverse this route. A truck might get bogged on a bridge or just simply break down. This just brings everything to a standstill. In the dry season however, it is just dusty and very rough. The bus averages about 40KMH. Every now and then, Camry’s with the steering wheel on the wrong side and no number plates flyes past, only just managing to stay on the road for the vibrations that are throwing them around. These cars are usually stolen from Thailand (hence the steering wheel being on the wrong side). The drivers just run them in to the ground using them as taxis.
So on the question of why this road is the way it is. There are a number of theories. One that I have heard is that Bangkok Airways who operate the monopoly route from Bangkok to Siem Reap, pay comfort cash to the Cambodian Government to leave the road as is, thus increasing their passenger numbers. I have heard this theory before actually traveling this route and have thought it to be fairly far fetched, but now that I see this and I have over the last few months experienced the way the Cambodian government operate, it seems maybe not so far fetched after all. Bangkok Airways operate six flights a day in each direction and all are generally quite full. If this story holds any water then, it is just another indigtment against the useless, vulgar people that administer this country. Cambodia has virtually no manufactured exports. This contrasts against most of it’s neighbours such as Vietnam or Thailand who are now big manufacturers and exporters. There are presumably a number of reasons for this such as the lack of a strong and guaranteed power supply and lack of infrastructure in many areas, but you would think that the lack of a decent road link to Thailand would have to be a factor here. If I were thinking of importing a Cambodian manufactured product to Australia, I would consider the supply chain options. Sihanoukville is Cambodia’s main sea port, but it is pretty small and reputed to be quite hopeless with things going missing or getting delayed for weeks. This means that I would have to get the stock to a Thai port. To do this, I would need to use the Siem Reap Poipet road. This would basically put an end to the thought process because of the state of the road and I would then be better off seeking the product in Vietnam which has an excellent sea port. So once again, the fat boy brigade are stifling their country’s development.
While I am pondering this, our bus gets a flat tire, so we limp into a small town to get it repaired. While they hoist the vehicle onto a stump of wood in place of a jack, we get talking to the local kids. As with any well traveled tourist route, they have good English, not from school, but from the travelers that come through. We play their favourite game, where we name a country and they tell us the name of the capital city, the population and in some cases the name of the head of state. They are cluey kids, maybe they could take over the running of their country.
We dock at the our hotel in Siem Reap (home away from home) at about eleven in the evening and have a quite beer over which we ponder our day. The next morning over Breakfast, our fix-it man explains that the chief that we came across is actually Hun Sen’s nephew. Hun Sen is the man in charge of Cambodia and has been for a long time. He is the big cheese, the head honcho, the man who shuts down whole roads when he moves around town so as to guarantee personal security.
The following entry was actually written some time ago, but fell by the wayside in the hectic mash of trips etc.
Poipet! Even the sound the name makes on your tongue as you utter it sounds horrible. The place in the flesh is truly worse. You arrive on the Thai side into a jumbled market area. In our case, we have eleven bicycles in boxes on the back of a ute that we have traveled from Bangkok in. Ben and I are taking the freshly serviced and packed bikes to Phnom Penh to use in the next tour that starts in a few days. Typical of most places in Asia, a tout is the first to approach us. He is offering to secure a Visa for us to enter Cambodia and will only charge us $30 USD. The standard price for a visa is actually $20, but according to our new friend, it takes a long time and you have to que for ages. I have been in this part of the world long enough to know that this is probably for lack of a better word, horse shit. So Ben and I grab a few ratty looking blokes pulling carts and load our boxed bikes onto them. We trundle off towards the border with the smell of dried fish hanging in the air.
If I describe the Thai side of the border as a jumbled market, then no man’s land is just in-describable. It is dusty and dirty and there are vehicles trying to swap sides of the road with no real provision or system to do so. The hand pulled carts are the main method by which to transport anything across the border and they range in size from one person pulling them to a huge one that is being pulled and pushed by about twenty people. Many of them are operated by children and weather children or adults, all are very skinny and dirty.
We arrive at the Cambodian Visa window, where there are a number of Khmer men with fat bellies hanging around the window. One of them informs me that the Visa cost is $20USD plus 1000 Baht ($40AUD) “processing fee”. I tell him that the sign above the window says $20USD and so that is all I’m going to pay. He then offers to discount the processing fee to 100 Baht. I tell him to piss off and he tells me that it will take a long time. I’m sure it will, but there is no way that this sloth is getting any money out of me. I push past tubby and hand our passports and money to the uniformed man behind the window. We then have a seat and the visas come to us within five minutes.
We march off towards where the bikes are parked on the trolleys only to find that customs are looking at them with some suspicion and a another look which I have seen before… it’s the “oh shit I’ve never seen this before, maybe I should get the boss” look. It’s not a great one, because the boss of any department is always harder to deal with and less of a push over than his subordinates. So we are told to have a seat and wait for “the chief”. The chief appears after some time with a different look, but one that I have also seen before. This is the “what the fuck have I been dragged out here for and what the fuck are these foreigners trying to pull over me?” Look. This is fairly quickly progressed to the “I’m going to ruin your day” look.
Our story is that we are transporting the bikes into Cambodia for other people to ride. The other people are not in the country yet, but are flying in shortly. This is pretty much the truth. We could elaborate more, but why bother? The more details, the harder they are going to find the comprehension of the story. The chief informs us, by talking to his interpreter, that we are bullshitting him (or words similar) and that we are actually taking the bikes to sell in Phnom Penh. After trying for a while to convince him that we would not dare to lie to him and that our story is 100% genuine, he decides that he would like to see one of the bicycles to see if they are in fact used. So we go to pull Ben’s bike out of the canvass case that it is packed into. Ben’s bike has recently been ridden from Thailand, through Laos, Tibet, to India and has more than a few marks to show for it. The chief is not going for that though, he tells us, to open one of the others. It occurs to me as I am cutting the tape on the top of the box, that our man Ae at the bike shop that services and packs the bikes, is obsessive about cleaning the bikes and that last time I got my bike back, it looked new. I am praying that he has not done such a good job on these, but alas, as the shiny blue bicycle hits daylight, all is lost. Ae has not only made it spotless, but has also managed to pack it in the original packing that bikes come in when they are new. It’s like a goddamn beacon! The chief is furious, and he now really does believe that we were bullshitting him. He tells us that we have to leave the bikes here. We can build two and ride them across the border, but the others have to stay until we can get some sort of proof from an embassy that the people that are using the bikes are in the country. This is of course an absurd demand, but we are not actually in the strongest of bargaining positions.
So we build one bike while we desperately try to contact our fix-it man in Cambodia. If anyone can save us, this man can. He tells us to sit tight and he will send someone. In the meantime, the customs blokes have been getting creative and have decided that they want to type up a five page document in Khmer then get Ben to sign it and then fingerprint him to each page. This is starting to get scary.
The fix-it guys arrive after about half an hour and the serious negotiations begin. For the most part of the next three hours, Ben and I have the pleasure of watching the chief bark orders and petrified staff. Upon visual assessment of the chief, we ascertain that he is a man of expensive tastes. He has a gold, diamond studded ring, accompanied by a similar bracelet. He sports a large gut which is topped by a loose flabby neck, supporting a bulbous head with greedy looking eyes. These eyes are partly hidden behind jewel encrusted glasses. We can guess what this man has been up to. We are a mere distraction. He must milk a lot out of his job. You don’t dress like this on a public servant’s salary. Ben dubs the chief and his team, the “The Fat Boy Brigade”. Quite fitting really. They are an exclusive but far reaching club, with members all over Cambodia, sitting on street corners on arm-chairs under umbrellas, in bars of questionable repute, shooting past in cars that are worth more than 500 ordinary Cambodian’s annual salaries. The Fat Boy Brigade! They are milking this country and anyone trying to get ahead, or even those that aren’t.
These fat bludgers are surrounded by the Casinos of the Poipet no-mans land. Golf carts with names like “Golden Paradise Casino” painted on the side, wait eagerly to snap up cashed up cosmetically altered gambling patrons from places like Phnom Penh or Bangkok. These giant structures sit surrounded by rubbish covered, dirty, dried fish smelling filth and in clear view of the wiry cart boys that slave away for a few dollars a day. There is no doubt that of the money that we pay to get our stock transported , these boys see hardly any of it,. I’m sure the fat boy brigade have seen to that.
Our fix-it guys have won! We have to pay a “$50 import tax”, but we can take our bikes. The only other thing is that to save face, they have to compile another six documents that have to be translated into written English and then signed and fingerprinted again. Ben is seriously concerned about all this fingerprinting stuff and the preparation of the documents takes hours, with the assistance of about eight staff all having their say as to how it should be done.
So we pick up our boxes, pile them onto some more carts. When we get into Cambodia, the vehicle that was supposed to be waiting for us has got sick of waiting and has presumably taken another fare. We eventually manage to get onto a bus that we share with some very tired looking back-packers. They have apparently been waiting for ages for the “VIP Bus” that they paid for. We take up half the bus and the back-packers are very understanding, while they have to cram in with bikes between them.
The road from Poipet to Siem Reap, is possibly the worst in South East Asia. This road is the main overland link between Bangkok and Phnom Penh and hence would appear to be a crucial trade route, but it is still unsurfaced. This is quite strange when you consider that all other major roads in Cambodia are now surfaced and some of them very well maintained, So why is this road so horrible? In the wet season, there are times when it can take a whole day to traverse this route. A truck might get bogged on a bridge or just simply break down. This just brings everything to a standstill. In the dry season however, it is just dusty and very rough. The bus averages about 40KMH. Every now and then, Camry’s with the steering wheel on the wrong side and no number plates flyes past, only just managing to stay on the road for the vibrations that are throwing them around. These cars are usually stolen from Thailand (hence the steering wheel being on the wrong side). The drivers just run them in to the ground using them as taxis.
So on the question of why this road is the way it is. There are a number of theories. One that I have heard is that Bangkok Airways who operate the monopoly route from Bangkok to Siem Reap, pay comfort cash to the Cambodian Government to leave the road as is, thus increasing their passenger numbers. I have heard this theory before actually traveling this route and have thought it to be fairly far fetched, but now that I see this and I have over the last few months experienced the way the Cambodian government operate, it seems maybe not so far fetched after all. Bangkok Airways operate six flights a day in each direction and all are generally quite full. If this story holds any water then, it is just another indigtment against the useless, vulgar people that administer this country. Cambodia has virtually no manufactured exports. This contrasts against most of it’s neighbours such as Vietnam or Thailand who are now big manufacturers and exporters. There are presumably a number of reasons for this such as the lack of a strong and guaranteed power supply and lack of infrastructure in many areas, but you would think that the lack of a decent road link to Thailand would have to be a factor here. If I were thinking of importing a Cambodian manufactured product to Australia, I would consider the supply chain options. Sihanoukville is Cambodia’s main sea port, but it is pretty small and reputed to be quite hopeless with things going missing or getting delayed for weeks. This means that I would have to get the stock to a Thai port. To do this, I would need to use the Siem Reap Poipet road. This would basically put an end to the thought process because of the state of the road and I would then be better off seeking the product in Vietnam which has an excellent sea port. So once again, the fat boy brigade are stifling their country’s development.
While I am pondering this, our bus gets a flat tire, so we limp into a small town to get it repaired. While they hoist the vehicle onto a stump of wood in place of a jack, we get talking to the local kids. As with any well traveled tourist route, they have good English, not from school, but from the travelers that come through. We play their favourite game, where we name a country and they tell us the name of the capital city, the population and in some cases the name of the head of state. They are cluey kids, maybe they could take over the running of their country.
We dock at the our hotel in Siem Reap (home away from home) at about eleven in the evening and have a quite beer over which we ponder our day. The next morning over Breakfast, our fix-it man explains that the chief that we came across is actually Hun Sen’s nephew. Hun Sen is the man in charge of Cambodia and has been for a long time. He is the big cheese, the head honcho, the man who shuts down whole roads when he moves around town so as to guarantee personal security.
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