March 17 From Scambodia to Vietscam

Given the many stories I’ve heard of tourists being taken advantage of and
the kinds of things locals will do to make an extra buck of a traveller,
what happened at the border between Cambodia and Vietnam should have come as
no surprise. But it still pissed me off to no end. Our bus from Phnom Penh
arrived at the Vietnamese border at about 10 a.m. We have to change buses on
the other side so our bus stopped about a hundred yards from the border
gate. A few men with a couple of ox carts came up to the bus and our luggage
was all unloaded onto the ox carts. We were not given the option of carrying
it and we all naively thought, “How nice, they’re going to take it across
the no-man’s land for us (an area about 200 yards wide between the Cambodian
and Vietnamese border).

We all head off to get stamped out of Cambodia, a process which takes a
ridiculously long time because there are two busloads of tourists ahead of
us, many of whom seem to be having problems getting out of the country. A
process that should take a few minutes takes about half an hour.

I’m the first through and head out of Cambodia into the no-man’s land.
There, in the middle of a huge empty gravel area are the two ox carts and
several men standing around them. They motion me over and ask me to take my
bag. I’m about to pull it off the cart when one of them says, "One dollar."
I know this is a scam, a means for some people with nothing better to do,
who are in cahoots with our bus driver, to make a lot of extra money for
doing nothing. And I also know that if the tour company, with whom I
arranged my trip from Phnom Penh to Saigon knew about this, they would tell
me not to pay. And the fact that these guys were ganging up in order to
intimidate people just made me madder. He was not even asking the dollar to
take it to the other border for me. He just wanted the money for bringing it
into the no-man’s land. And from the looks of all the bags, and all the tour
buses behind me, these guys are making a killing.

"WHAT!?!?" I yell. (I was ready to make as big a scene as necessary to
embarrass these guys) “You want a dollar for taking it, unasked, off the bus
and dragging it on a cart for a couple of hundred yards. We’re not even at
the Vietnamese border. I’ll take it myself, thank you," and I grab for my
bag. They hold it back. One of them waves a wad of $1 bills in my face and
says, "You fends all pay.?"

"My friends are all back at border control trying to get out of Cambodia,?" I
yell back at him, motioning towards the border behind me. "I’m going to find
the bus driver on the other side and tell him about this" I start to stomp
off in the direction of Vietnam. One of them yells after me, "Your bag."
I naively figure he has given up and doesn’t want trouble from anyone so I
head back and grab my bag, successfully, off the cart.

"One dolla," he says again.

"Piss off," I tell him, and head to Vietnam.

I feel like turning around and telling everyone behind me about this scam
but I know I can’t get back into the area they are in so I pray they will
follow in my footsteps and refuse to pay.

As far as I know, only one guy on our bus was intimidated into paying the
dollar, not being able to physically grab his bag away from these guys
otherwise.

Goodbye Scambodia.