Crossing borders

The border Cambodia-Thailand border crossing

I have never crossed borders overland before this trip and now I have done it twice! Into Cambodia from Vietnam a few weeks ago and yesterday into Thailand from Cambodia. The border between Vietnam and Cambodia was easy peasy. We were on a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh and got off for less than ten minutes to show are passports and our faces to the border control and back on the same bus on the other side.

Travelling into Thailand from Cambodia was another story! We went from Siem Reap to the border town of Poipet and walked for 150 meters into the border town of Arranyapathet in Thailand on the other side. This time we had chosen to take a taxi to the border from Siem Reap because there is no through transport anyway.

We arrived at the Cambodia exit and there was a large crowd of people waiting to get their exit stamp. I don’t prize stamps, though they are quite nice to have, but unfortunately I needed one to then enter Thailand. So we waited with scores of other people wanting to get the heck out of Cambodia. After a while three immigration windows opened and e managed to get into more orderly queues. Luckily we found ourselves in a fast-moving one and within half an hour we had cleared Cambodia Immigration.

Now we had the 150 meters or so of no-man’s land to walk through to get to the other border. Many countries in SE Asia have a ban on gambling and the no-man’s lands between countries provide the perfect place where a gambler can go to spend money in seedy casinos. What I don’t understand is why if both border countries have ban on gambling do they allow it in a thin strip of land between them?

Celebrating our crossing with street-food.

Walking past these joints, we reached an area where 50 – 70 people were queueing outside the border post. Part of the queue was under thin shade but as you moved along at snail pace you would sometimes find yourself standing in the bright mid-day sun. This was 34 degrees with the humidity feeling a lot hotter than that. The queue took more than an hour to reach the border post where we could get into the building and cool down. Now there was another queue but in the A/C this didn’t feel nearly as bad and when I reached the immigration official and took my hat off he nearly didn’t recognise me with my hair stuck to my scalp with the litres of sweat that had dripped off me earlier. But he smiled a broad smile and welcomed me into Thailand.

The entire process took a little over two hours but I expect we had picked a busy day without realising it because there were also lots of Cambodians and Thai crossing which took up some of the officials’ time also.

I was disappointed with the Vietnam – Cambodia crossing – it was too easy. I had always imagined it to be arduous enough to celebrate afterwards. This felt more like it. Reaching Bangkok a few hours later, we celebrated in the only style we know how – crab, shrimp, oysters and squid washed down with a bottle of Singha!