Buhay Bangkok

My wife and our two kids accompanied me to Cambodia for my first ‘exit’ in August last year (She made her ‘exit’ two weeks previously; the kids are exempted from it). We had to travel four hours by bus to get to the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet. There, only a small creek separates the two kingdoms. Across the bridge lies the Cambodian town of Poi Pet.   

To visit the neighboring kingdom, all I had to do was just cross the bridge after going through Thai immigration, then straight on to the Cambodia immigration outpost to have my passport stamped, and pay 200 Baht (For what? I wondered. I entered Thailand a month ago but Thai immigration did not ‘charge’ me for anything. The Cambodian immigration officers also did not issue us official receipts. Hhmm….). A few minutes later, I retraced my steps to reenter
Thailand. Parang nakakaloko, ano? This is done for formalities’ sake, just so it can be said that I left and re-entered Thailand.  Holders of a tourist visa like me are given only 30 days or so to stay in Thailand. If we overstay, there’s a 500 Baht penalty per day, or worse we’d be arrested and deported. Rather than go to a faraway destination (the US? He-he), we just go to the nearest border town and cross to Cambodia. It’s called a ‘border run.’ Grabe, nakakapagod. We left home at 3 am to catch the early morning bus going to Aranyaprathet, fall in line, cross the bridge, fall in line again, re-cross the bridge, fall in line yet again and take the trip back home. Well, at least after having a lunch of khao pad in a nearby ahan-ran (eatery). We arrived home late that day. 

If the Philippines is a Third World country, then Cambodia must belong to the Fourth World (if there’s one)!. Based on what I have seen in Poi Pet, Cambodia looked like it was eons away from Thailand. You can see it in their people. Whereas most Thais are fair-skinned and cosmopolitan and can charm you with their smile, the Cambodians (at least, the ones I saw; almost of them were farmers) were swarthy, wore old and worn clothes and have a sad expression on their faces. Life must be really harder on their side of the border. 

Poi Pet’s casinos and hotels (primarily catering to Thai tourists out for a good time; casinos are banned in Thailand) provided a stark contrast to the sight of farmers with their carts lining up on the dusty road to Aranyaprathet’s border post where the Cambodians have to secure a pass good for one day.  These farmers cross the border everyday to sell their farm goods in Thailand. They do so by loading the fruits, vegetables and sometimes a half-dozen handicraft products or so in carts. What is sad is that they don’t have any beast of burden to assist them in their cross-border expedition. Instead, they’re the beasts of burden! They pull their own carts. 

Some enterprising Cambodians, on the other hand, bring their carts to Aranyaprathet and rent them out ala taxi. Each cart can easily carry six to eight tourists. The poor Cambodians would pull their heavily laden carts, bringing their tourist-passengers from one stall to another. Among the dozen or so ‘Cambodian taxis’ I noticed a husband-and-wife team. As the man pulled the cart, his wife did the pushing. Lungkot, ‘no? Our own tricycle drivers in the Philippines never had it better. 

Reminders of the horrors of war were abundant in Poi Pet. I saw a lot of Cambodians with a leg or two missing; they were survivors of landmine explosions. Either they hobbled along on a good leg, aided only by a crutch, or limped with a prosthetic leg.  One or two landmine victims drove modified carts: They propelled their carts with a hand-held pedal. A beggar provided shock treatment to passersby like me: His face looked remotely human because of the extent of burns it has sustained. A victim of a napalm bomb explosion? 

I read that there are still a million landmines scattered all over Cambodia. Any farmer or his son tilling a field can accidentally step on one and boom! off goes his leg, If he’s lucky. The unfortunate ones have their bodies blown away. On the way back to the Thai immigration outpost, I saw a huge poster just beyond the cyclone wire that served as part of the two kingdoms’ boundary. Though the poster’s text was in the Cambodian script, the accompanying photos made the message clear: ‘Don’t engage in child trafficking.’  

Among the people in the queue were some Malaysian Chinese. They were chattering among themselves as they pointed at the poster and then to something at the bottom.  It turned out that there were two Cambodian kids on the other side of the wire, just beneath the huge poster. What caught the attention of the Malaysians was that those two children looked like doppelgangers to the photograph on the poster of a Cambodia boy cradling his baby sibling. One Malaysian took out a digital camera and took photos. They were so amused by this sight I’m not sure if they have taken notice of the expression on the faces of those two kids. Soon, it was my turn at the Thai immigration outpost’s counter. After the lady behind the booth stamped my passport, extending my stay in Thailand for 30 more days, I walked to where my family was waiting for me. 

Edited version of an e-mail sent 5 August 2006