Trifter

My friends all call me an old hippy. I have never thought of myself  as a hippy, and I certainly don´t think I am old. I´m just  one of those people that feel comfortable throwing a few things in a back-pack and taking off for somewhere that sounds interesting. I know I am guilt of not doing much research before buying that ticket. Yes, it is true I have ended up in some strange places and some interesting situations,some which haven´t been so great.

So I hope you will travel along and see where things went right or wrong. Grab your back-pack and come along we are going to cross the border from Thailand to Cambodia. 

I had been traveling in Thailand for over two months. I had started in Bangkok ,of course and traveled down the coast to Puket, back and forth through the islands, back to Bangkok, down the other coast and I needed a place to just hang out for awhile. I got lucky and discovered Ko Chang, it was just what I was hoping to find. It had great beaches,super food, first-run movies at night, not that many tourists, and best of all cheap, clean rooms. I loved Ko Chang, and I just stayed and stayed. One fine day I happened to look at my visa and to my great disappointment I only had ten days before I either had to go back to Bangkok or cross the border and go into Cambodia. Crossing the border and going in Cambodia certainly sounded more interesting than returning to Bangkok, as I was getting pretty  sick of bus travel.  I was lucky as there was a lady from Korea staying at the same hotel as I was, and she also needed to renew her visa, so we made plans to go together  the following week. We planned to take the ferry to Trat then just catch a bus to the border at Had Lek. We both wanted to spend a week or two in Cambodia  and then we would return to Ko Chang.

The next day the big news on the island was that in Phnom Penh the Cambodians had burned the Thai embassy and all the borderswere closed and the hai army was being called out to protect the borders. This was the talk of the day and continued for several days. I still had a few days left on my visa, but I´d have to lave for Bangkok if this situation didn´t change soon.

We had good T.V. coverage but of course it was in Thai so we needed it interputed, but everyone agreed the border was open. The lady from Korea and I made plans to rent a jeep with a driver, because the buses weren´t going to the border until next week. No one was sure why the buses weren´t running but everyone thought that it was just that not many people wanted to go to Cambodia right now as the country was still a little mad at the Cambodians for burning their embassy. Well want to or not ,we had to go and we only had two days left . We had some great help finding a good safe driver and super jeep and everything was in order for us to go tomorrow.

The next day our driver, Phan, arrived on time, and we caught the ferry to the mainland. Phan, said “ it would only take about three hours to drive there, but that this was such a busy border we may have to stand in line for a hour or more”. It seems that this is where all the Thai people cross into Cambodia to do their gambling. He told us “ that he loved to go to the casinos in Cambodia as he was always lucky with the cards and the women”.

There were no lines of people. There were only hundreds of empty little stands usually full of vendors selling their fruit, vegetables, or crafts. All of the main stores were also closed…

As Phan pulled up to Immigrations he said “Oh, my God I don´t think this is good, it is just too strange I think we need to go home, now”.The lady from Korea asked “if I wanted to go back or just keep going”. My thought was hey, neither side was angry at either of us or our countries, lets just keep going and see how it goes. I was a little nervous because Phan was white nuckled and didn´t think it was a good idea..The Thai border guards knew why we were there, as many foreigners do this visa run, the guards were used to this routine. They quickly stamped our passports, opened the make-shift barbed-wire gate and told us we had to walk across the bridge then we would see the Cambodian border. Normally there was a shuttle bus, but not today because no one was crossing the border, no-one but the two of us.We started our walk and I looked back at the barbed-wire blockade. Then I got really scared. There were at least twenty or twenty-five Thai military men with machine-guns raised, and it sure looked like they were aimed right at us. I walked as fast as I could, thinking Cambodia had to be better, if we didn´t get shot first. As we crossed this very, very long bridge I could see the same thing at the Cambodian border. More machine-guns pointed at us. We kept going because we had to go somewhere. As we approached their barbed-wire blockade, the Cambodian soldiers were all smiling and nudging each other. I´m not sure but I think this was a lot of fun for a usually boring job.They quickly stamped our passports, opened the horrid looking gate and now the hardest part for me was, we had to walk the long, long, bridge back to Thailand with guns from both borders pointed at us, again. These boys from both countries looked maybe sixteen-eighteen years old. As I walked across the bridge I hoped that one of them wouldn´t think it might be fun to shoot us and just throw us in the river, because who would ever know if a woman from Korea and a woman from the US just disappeared.

The only person that knew where we were was Phan, and I thought maybe he was so scared that he might have just left and quietly gone home. Well, obviously it didn´t happen, we walked back to Thailand with guns from both countries pointed at us, our passports once again stamped. Then we both ran for the bath-room before we wet our pants. I then found a store that was open and bought a bottle of Thai whiskey and coke and we had a much needed celebration. Phan told us” he thought we were either very brave or very stupid and that he was really scared for us”. He saw all the guns raised and asked the guards “what was going on¨? They told him “they were protecting us from the terrible men in Cambodia”. I guess the Cambodians were protecting us from the terrible men in Thailand. Oh, please, please, never protect me again..