Crap! I Have a Blog!

The ferry arrived at Koh Kong on time and I was the last one off. A moto taxi driver had come inside the boat to get a jump on my fare and he actually didn’t seem too annoying so I entertained his offer. “You go to Thailand?” he asked. Ignoring his question I asked him how far the border was and he told me 15 kilometers. I asked how much and he said $3. I figured he was probably lying about the distance and I just paid $2 for a 10km trip the day before so I held to $2 and he agreed. I would have tried for lower but I knew the border closes at 5:00 and my mobile said it was 4:18 already. There was also, of course, a mob of other drivers outside when we sealed the deal.

I got onboard his scooter and we wound out of the dirt lot for a dock and onto a bridge over the channel the ferry had parked in. At one end of the bridge was a sign that said the border post was 8km away; exactly what I figured. At the other end of the bridge a row of toll booths were waiting for us. Just before we reached a booth he asks: “You pay the toll?” I suppose if he had just declared, “You pay the toll”, like that’s the way it’s done I would have just paid it. But obviously that wasn’t the way it was done, and he was just trying to squeeze that bit more out of me. So I said no. He looked back at me with an angry cow-eye as he stopped the moto with me lined up in front of the attendant and him just past him. He told me to pay again and I said no and looked at the scenery. He trashed me to the attendant in Khmer so I gave the guy a “fuck it” smile and he stuck his head back in so only I could see him return the same smile. The driver threatened to take me back to the dock and I said “let’s go”. I was bluffing. I didn’t have the time. But also I finally looked at the sign and saw the toll was only 1,200 riel. Alright, now I’m just being cheap, I thought and was about to reach back for my wallet when the driver handed over the money and took off. I figured I’d pay him $2.50 for the tolls. What’s it to me. But then he turns his head back and says “You pay three now.” “I pay two”, I said. He said something about tolls and petrol and 15km and I busted in. I told him I saw the sign. I asked him why he didn’t tell me about the tolls when we agreed to the price. He shut up for the rest of the ride and only grumbled to himself about me and cow-eyed me a couple times.

Once there I paid him 2 and he demanded 3 and I walked away with him in tow trying to make a scene. Finally I spun around on him and asked him angrily in front of his moto friends again why he didn’t tell me about the toll. When he didn’t think of anything for a couple of beats I blurted out “That’s right! We’re done!” and walked on. I heard him yell “Fuck…!” at me and I figured he forgot what the second word of that epithet was. So when I approached the departures window I was grinning at that but I also was thinking the tactics that just worked with this guy may come in handy with the generals inside.

And sure enough inside the window was a room full of generals and one little fat guy with a too tight undershirt apparently working as a gopher. “Here we go!” I thought to myself, already psyched up for round 2. The general just inside the window was writing in a big book and looking half asleep for effect - to let me know how important he was while he ignored me. Without looking at me he finally took my passport, opened it right to the page with the departure card and gave it back saying, “Fill it out.” Then he went back to his book. I figured this guy knows his job well and I’m going to have no shot at weaseling out of any of the scams he’s got up his sleeve. I gave it back and he ignored me for another minute before taking it and going through a graceful bunch of motions with my passport and stamps and ledgers and then closes my passport and hands it back to me. No fines? He didn’t ask me for the penalty, I thought to myself. Is that possible? But before I could stop myself I smiled and said “that’s it?” He got this confused look on his face and gestured for the passport back. I slowly handed it back trying to think of a way not to while not betraying that I know something’s wrong. He thumbs back and fort through the passport then reads it cover to cover – forwards and backwards - like he just discovered porno. Finally he looks at me and says “you overstayed”, but unsure of himself, like he’s asking me, not telling me. This is high-stakes poker now and I’m playing dumb. “I don’t think so,” I said, leaning towards the passport like I can will it into my hand like a Jedi’s light saber. He looked down at it again and this time said with certainty, “you overstayed” and waved me into the building. ‘“That’s it?”’!?!? Goddammitt! Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut! I almost got out of there without paying a red cent!

Inside the big shoe box of an office, without looking at me he sits me down next to himself at his desk. He’s looking at the passport, then the calendar on the wall, then at a chart of penalties below it, then at the two different dates on the two different pages of my passport. I can see he’s figuring out what the problem is, which is good, but he’s also figuring out how much money is at stake, which is not good. I’m waiting for him to take a posture with me so I can tell whether to fight or to give up the dough. He points to the date on my visa and says “this is when you came into the country?” Good. I can fight because he’s actually going to acknowledge the evidence rather than see that he can take money from me without an argument if he wants. I lean in over the page and say “Yes” with confidence. He’s stuck for a second because he sees the visa is perfectly clear – it’s an official visa sticker that takes up a full page of my passport with elaborate national  symbols and decorations, the price of the visa, ($20), my details and two clearly defined dates: “date of issue: 14 May, 2007” and “date of expiration: 14 August, 2007”. It contains no other information specifying time allowed in the country, when it must be used by, or specifying the length of time I’m allowed in the country other than the issue to expiration dates. I know he’s going to argue that somehow all of those conditions apply and that I should have known this… somehow. Surprisingly he’s actually seeing my case in the document, but accepting it would mean he doesn’t get a cut of my money he would get if he forces me to pay. Suddenly he flops two pages back to the stamp that was put on there at the same time as the visa, with a departure slip stapled over it and folded over once to fit inside. The stamp says “Republic of Cambodia” and the dates, 14 May, 2007 and 14 June, 2007, and some crap in Khmer. He points and says I had to leave by that date. Encouraged, I flipped the passport back to the visa page, pointed, looked him in the eye, making like I’m surprised at what he’s saying, and launched into the script I’d been practicing for days: “This is a visa, right? I got it at the border and it says ‘issued on May 14’ and ‘expires on August 14’ and in every country in the world that’s a three-month visa. Now what you’re saying is that a stamp that was put two pages away and under a piece of paper and only says the word “Cambodia” and two dates on it should tell me that this visa does not mean what it says and I only have one month in the country. How is it possible that I can know that this is what that means? …and would you know that this is what that means if you were me and this was your passport?”

I had him dead to rights and for a second he understood this. But it didn’t produce the effect I had hoped for. He started to boil. He slid the passport behind him along the desk and looked at me with white hot rage in his eyes. I wished I had learned more from the self-deprecating manipulation of the peasant heroes of Chinese literature instead of the smart-ass comedian heroes of 1980s cinema. “You came into my country,” he spat at me, “and you overstay your time and now you must pay!” I lost. I knew that. But as I saw it I still had this golden opportunity to speak truth to power; to let him know that he’s winning the argument because he’s wearing the uniform of a corrupt military and not because he’s right. This idea always works out well, doesn’t it? “Your country gave me a three month visa. You are not calling it a one month visa and asking me for money,” I asserted. I pointed at my passport. “You saw where I’ve been. Those countries never did this to me,” I lied.

I stood quiet and waited while small vapors of smoke rose from under his collar and off the top of his bald head. His eyes turned yellow and the pupils turned into narrow vertical ellipses. The other generals looked on in confusion, fear and anticipation. The little guy in the undershirt stood in a back doorway smirking, impressed with my pending martyrdom. Although he never spoke I’m sure he was the only other Khmer in the room who spoke any English. My opponent, however, had now forgotten his English. He yelled a series of sentences that I didn’t understand at all. I asked, “What? I can’t understand you now.” He repeated it louder and less intelligibly. I looked at Undershirt, who turned to look busy. “I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said, vaguely thinking he had said something like “pay plenty” with something like “go back”. Now he was shouting something entirely different, of which I only understood “cancel your passport,” “Phnom Penh,” and “Ministry of something-or-other.” That first bit conjured up in my head the words “Property of the United States of America” and I groped around in there for a way to threaten my embassy’s involvement. Fortunately my past experiences were milling around in there chain smoking like expected fathers and they looked up at me and said “You’re fucking kidding, right?” I decided to try lying again. It seemed to me it worked once before. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Department of Immigration, and the American embassy all told me the government made a mistake…” I was going to say: “and that you would fix it for me” but that would have been seen as crazy talk by both of us. His whole head was red and he was shaking. So was I. “Pay plenty or go back Phnom Penh!” he screamed into my face. I didn’t know if he was bluffing or not. He might have actually been afraid of me raising a stink and I had heard that border post had been in trouble for imposing illegal fines in the past. But I knew I had been bluffing all along. I knew I would almost definitely be paying about $200 in overstay penalties regardless, and had been warned that this border has been hitting up overstays with a made-up $35 charge on top of the legit penalty. That scam hadn’t even come up so I decided to fold up shop and pay. “How much?” I asked. He spun around, tossing my passport in front of the general behind him, barked something in Khmer, stomped over to a corner desk and began writing in a ledger.

The second general looked at me with the pity of an executioner and began stamping and writing in my passport. He wasn’t looking at the calendar or the penalty chart and when I saw him grab and use the “CANCEL” stamp I knew I was fucked. “Hey!” I yelled at nobody in particular. “What are you doing? I said ‘how much?’ I said I’d pay!” He looked at me like a dog that had just been shown a card trick. To general #1 I pleaded, “I said I’d pay!” He didn’t look - only throbbed the veins on his forehead at me. Knowing I had no hope in Phnom Penh and would only pay another $6 a day until I did manage to escape, I ordered loud and slow: “I said I’d pay!” I should have checked earlier if the generals wore sidearms. I checked now. They didn’t. He looked at me like he wished they did. I felt general #2 take me gently by the inside of my elbow and lead me back to his desk. He finished a couple more stamps and waved my passport in the direction of Phnom Penh before handing it back to me and pointing at the exit. Undershirt was holding the doorknob and pleading with his eyes for me to escape with him. “Come with me if you want to live,” he was saying. I knew I should leave if only to cool the situation.

Just as I was walking through the door, Undershirt pointed towards the Thai border instead of the Capital. “Run Forrest! Ruuun!” he seemed to be saying now. I was sure I had a cancelled visa and shouldn’t be allowed though the checkpoint, but it was worth a shot, I thought and walked towards the box next to the hole in the roadblock where people were walking through.

Two soldiers were lying on big boulders spacing out on the tree above them. Another guard sat in a plastic chair inside the box with his elbows on his knees, fingers locked together and his eyes watching the shoes of the Thais and Khmers passing through the gate in both directions. Mine he noticed coming from Immigration and he looked up with half-open eyes as I approached. I faked sharing a bored smile with him, pointed through the exit without stopping and said “Thailand, yes?” He smiled back and nodded but didn’t reach out for my passport. An orchestra and two choirs in my heart belted out the “Ode to Joy”. “I’m free!” my brain shrieked like a gay guy in a locker room. He sighed and reached out his hand for my passport. The tuba player was the last to notice and shut up.

Back inside the office I crossed the room to the bald general asking, calmer now: “Why did you cancel my visa when I said I’d pay?” He stared at me still angry but tired while I asked the question twice more. He asked, “You want to pay now?” “Yes,” I said, begging myself not to be a smartass anymore. He slowly got up and took my passport. He walked it over and dropped it in front of #2, gave him a quiet instruction, walked back past me without looking at me and went back to work.

Like the stunned survivor surveying the wreckage of his home after the storm has passed I watched #2 working the stamps and pens and ledgers over my passport. He looked up at the calendar on the wall then at the chart of fines below it. He turned to me and said “fi’ dollah”, held up his index finger and finished, “day.” “OK,” I replied, looking disappointed. “Dumbasses!” I finished the reply to myself.

Everyone else I told about this visa situation told me the fines go up to $6 a day after 30 days. Here are the guys who actually get to spend the money on expensive champagne and cheap hookers and they don’t even know the system. As the guy is miscalculating my punishment it’s dawning on me that my biggest mistake was letting on that I was the smartest guy in the room, with the possible exception of Undershirt. Don’t get me wrong. I knew I was only smarter because I didn’t have a uniform on. If they’d have just issued me one I’d have cut them all a share of my bank accounts and gone right out and picked up a couple of hookers to celebrate my good fortune with me. These guys actually pay to get the jobs at the borders because they get to keep the money they take in. That’s the way these countries are run – you have a uniform – you get to take money from anyone without one. You win every argument, and nobody tells you the truth. They tell you what you want to hear. Over time you’re the dumbest guy in any room. Power corrupts but it also lobotomizes.

Undershirt knew this and at that moment I realized he had been trying to tell it to me with his eyes for the last hour. He knew I had a shot at passing by the empty uniform at the roadblock if I’d have only ignored my ego long enough to recognize what I was dealing with – men who would gladly trade in all their stolen wealth to keep their stolen senses of self-worth. I was only the second smartest guy in the room and second place cost me a pretty penny.

I quickly paid the $170 and collected my passport without saying a word to anyone until I said “thank you” to Undershirt outside the door.

I said nothing as the gate-keeper opened my passport for half a second, (probably to the wrong page), and waved me through.

Expecting and receiving the same bumbling abuse at Thai Immigration, I kept my mouth shut and played the humble peasant, deferentially poking the situation to my favor. This time the frog-faced bureaucrat in his official yellow polo shirt insisted I was only entitled to 48 hours in the country because he knew that July was only five months past January because you have to count from the zero month before it. (You’re only allowed 90 days in Thailand in a six month period. I cleared this by three weeks.) I resisted explaining counting and time and instead interjected “seven months” into the gaps in his calculations until he compromised between the two wrong answers to six months, with the help of two other officials, and gave me my 30-day stamp. All it cost me this time was a half hour of humility and I struggled to pay even that.

Now came the real challenge of getting a fair price from a shared taxi driver for a ride to my destination, the town of Trat. All the other travelers having moved on already I had to entertain the offer of the only driver left in town. He said the ride would cost $3 so I went to his van with him ready to relax and space out for the two hour ride. When we got there the van was empty save for one Thai person in the front passenger seat. I asked if we were waiting for the van to fill up before leaving and he said, “No. We go now,” and gestured hurriedly towards the side door. I asked who pays for the empty seats, having fallen for the old empty shared taxi gag once back in Yemen. “You pay 900 Baht ($27) for 9 seats. Come. We leave now,” he said, pulling on my arm but careful not to betray the absurdity of my part in the deal. “Nice try,” I told him as I pulled away and walked towards the empty main street of this tiny border town. I glanced back and saw him lean on his van and light a cigarette knowing that with no more tourists coming through the closed border and no hotels in the town his was literally the only deal in town. Once again I was fucked and I knew it. And the few old women and kids I asked about hotels and other modes of transportation out of the place knew it too.

My saviors came in the form of handsome Russian family pulling out of the town parking lot - where the taxi driver was still waiting and watching – in a new silver minivan. I managed to knock on the window as they passed me and ask if they knew anything about getting out of this place. Only the wife spoke a little bit of English and rather than sort out how to explain my lack of options she just said, “We take you. Get in.” I didn’t get a look back at the taxi driver. A quiet two hours of middle class family life I had completely forgotten existed later and they reluctantly dropped me off outside of Trat with the reassurance that I could easily get a moto taxi anywhere in the country. I was wrong. I walked the 5 kilometers to the guest houses with the help of some friendly locals and a vicious dog blocking the wrong way I wanted to take. By 9:00 PM I was safely back in my guest house life, free to live life as I please for the next 30 days.