The Day the Dream Almost Died - Pt 1 (Getting out of Thailand) (Warning: This blog contains quite a heavy amount of rambling)

Wiping the sleep from my eyes, after about 3 hours of un-interupted sleep I got up showered and packed up my things. The three of us checked out of our hotel at about 5am and left for the station. There's a scam in Bangkok where the taxi drivers will try and agree a price for the journey before you set off. However if they put it on the meter it would cost a fraction of the price you'd agreed. I haggled with one taxi driver and he came down to 150 bt, but was still refusing to put on the meter. So we left him and walked to the other end of the road. “where you going to mate”, said one, “the train station” I said, “can you put it on the meter?” He looked a bit put out and said “I haven't got a meter”, luckily for him just as i started to walk away he suddenly remembered that he actually did have a meter! “That was lucky” I said to him. Today was going to be a day for patience.

Got to the station ok, it only cost us 47bt, the tickets for the train cost 48 bt each (about 70p), which for a 7 hour train journey isn't bad, Virgin could learn a lot from these lads. The journey was pretty much uneventful, sleep was mixed with a bit of window gazing at half completed buildings and stations. Arriving at the border town in Thailland was were i thought things would get tricky. Thanks to Mona I'd read and printed out info about crossing the border from www.talesofasia.com, an invaluable website for this part of the world. Anyway the website said we should pay no more than 80 bt for a tuk tuk to take us to the border, as we pulled into the station, the driver's eyes lit up to see 3 western faces, and they were all running along side the train trying to get to us. The first tuk tuk driver quoted us 80 bt, the correct price. Hmmmmmm, something wasn't quite right here. I was relieved to here another English guy who was bartering saying about how he had done this hundreds of times before and knew the system, if we stuck close to him then I think we would be ok. The tuk tuk driver drove us straight to the Cambodian Consulate building. I'd heard of a scam where people try and get you to pay to get out of Thailand, so I wasn't sure about this unscheduled stop. The English guy who had been at the station pulled up in his tuk tuk, we had a quick chat and both decided it was a scam. The driver assured us that we would need a stamp to get out of the country and if we didn't we would be turned away at the border. In a polite way i told him to get knotted and we left.

He then took us to a car park where there was a small marquee erected, where we were supposed to fill in forms. I hadn't read anything about this and was quite unsure. I said to the ever so helpful attendant that I needed to go to the bank to get some money as I didn't have any. He took us into the dirty market town to get some travelers cheques exchanged. So i tried to level with him what the score was. he said that we needed to fill out a form, and then he would take us back to the consulate office to get a stamp. He assured me that there would be no charge for it, and showed me his poorly laminated pass to show that he was officially working for the Thai government. I'm sure i'd seen those passes on sale in Khao San road.

So anyway the three of us went back to his little tent, filled in some forms and stapled a photo to them. The forms were poorly photocopied documents with some of the text missing at the bottom, but he assured me that we wouldn't have to pay for any of this and that if we liked his service we could tip him 30 or 40 bt, fair enough I thought as he'd shown me where the bank was. I took Matt and Mona's passports and completed forms and jumped on the back of his motorbike to go to the consulate, again. On the way there he was on the phone to someone, alarm bells started to ring. As soon as money was mentioned I was ditching this joker. So anyway we pulled up at the consulate's office, luckily there was a guy out side waiting to meet us. He asked to see the passports, then the paper work. I'd not seen this guy's ID and we hadn't actually stepped foot inside the office at this point, then he said that I would have to pay 1,000 bt per passport. The Thieving Bastards. I went a little bit mental at the guy and grabbed back the passports, he tried to argue that he'd told me that we would have to pay, and that I was messing him around. The cheeky little swine, i told him to get lost and take me back to the other two, which after about 5 minutes of heated verbal confrontation, he did. We got back and i explained to the other what had happened, the guy then starts telling me that we'll get turned back at the cambodian side, I told him fine, if that happens then we'll just come back but I'm not giving you 1,000 bt on your say so.

We stormed off to try and get a bit of peace from the touts, went back to the bank and asked one of the guys who worked there if he knew the score about crossing the border. He looked no plussed and got out his mobile to phone one of his mates. “Forget it”, I said and walked off. At that point i'd never felt so helpless and with no one else to turn to. Apparently the chief of Police in Poipet (the Cambodian border town) takes a percentage of every tourist caught in this scam. I'd had enough of these charlatans so we headed straight for the Thai immigration. Then the guy who had tried to con us the first time appears behind us on his bike saying: “Ok, my friend, if you want Visa then we do it at my office”, I told him to f-off and that he'd had his chance.

We got to the Thai immigration side, and had no problem getting out of the country. We were then walking inbetween the no man's land between Thailand and Cambodia, which called also be called “Beggar's Canyon” if i was in a Star Wars kind of mood, which I wasn't. I was hot, burnt and annoyed. and it was only just past mid-day.

A 'helpful' taxi driver ushered us to the visa services. A friendly looking Cambodian met us to say that we needed to pay 1,000 bt for the visas along with the $25 that it was supposed to cost. I'd told him that his mate had already tried that one on us and we hadn't fallen for it. He said “Oh yes, you've been to the consulate twice today”, they are all on the phones to each other constantly. “just give me the visa mate, I'm only going to pay the $25 like it says”. he went away and caled back, “ok my friend $25!”. Too bloody right. as we were filling out the forms, he asked me where me and Matt were from, I said England, and he launched into his cockney accent “Awlright mate? eazy jeezer, lovely jubbly, you like Del Boy?”. “No.” I sternly said. I had no time for these 'fools and horses'.